Channel surfing Sunday afternoon, I came across a rerun of a March 22 City Hall ceremony where Police Chief Robert Olson resented awards to several members of the Minneapolis Police Department. On several instances during the presentations the Chief referred to people not working along side his department as “thugs” After the awards were presented Councilmember Joe Biernat, Chair of the council’s Public Safety & Regulatory Services Committee made some glowing statements.
Last night, I watched the Channel 5 version of the evening news. On tape during the broadcast, we were shown members of the Minneapolis Police Department playing the part of the thugs. We watched one person being held down by uniformed Minneapolis police officers while another officer beat the person with what appeared to be a nightstick.
Inspector Rich Stanek of the Minneapolis Police Department and a state legislator from one of the northwest suburbs was quoted in today’s StarTribune: “This was a riot.” The newspaper tells us “Stanek said no damage was done to businesses in the commercial district.” Must have been some riot.
Back when the Twins won the World Series, people were riding fire trucks in the streets of downtown Minneapolis. I don’t recall those celebrations being referred to as “riots”. There were certainly more people in the streets than the 600 reported Saturday night.
BTW. It was reported that someone set a fire in the street. I have yet to see a concrete street damaged by fire.
Again from the Strib “In the morning, front-end loaders moved large pieces of debris blocking streets. Street sweepers cleaned up most of the broken bottles and other items that littered the streets.” That sounds to me to be exactly what they do in my neighborhood when cleaning up after an Aquatennial parade, well maybe then they don’t wait until morning. Apparently the kids over at the U forgot to get a permit for their celebration.
After the New York City police brutalized Abner Louima in 1997, thousands marched in protest against police brutality. Louima sued for millions. Police officers went to prison.
At that time Former NYPD officer Bernard Cawley (nicknamed "The Mechanic" for tuning people up, or beating them, frequently) at Mollen Commission hearings commented “We'd just beat people in general....to show who was in charge.”
This is far from the first complaint of an over zealous Minneapolis police officer, yet one has never been fired for such actions. Certainly one has never gone to prison.
Councilmember Biernat’s Public Safety and Regulatory Services Committee needs to be reforming the leadership of a Police Department that tolerates the activity we watched on last night’s news.
County Attorney Amy Klobuchar should be filing charges against police officers that assault anyone. Assault is a serious crime, its worse when a uniformed officer is doing it to someone who is being restrained by other officers.
Terrell Brown
Loring Park
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