With great fanfare we were told yesterday about misdemeanor charges against some of the kids involved in the celebration over at the U last weekend. Why not equal fanfare for charges against the cops we watched beating kids on the Sunday and Monday news broadcasts? Did someone conveniently forget to file those charges? Did someone forget that maybe they should fire the cop who was beating on some kid as some of his colleagues held the kid down on the ground? Funny, the cop hasn't been held in jail for 48 hours while someone sits around and figures out what charges to file (or not file).
Complaints against the Minneapolis cops aren't something especially new. Complaints against Minneapolis cops are much more frequent than complaints against St. Paul cops. Anyone think there might be a reason? Are we onto a problem here? Anyone wonder why the cops object to any kind of civilian review? Maybe we need more than just Civilian Review. Maybe we need a Police Commission, civilians who have oversight authority over the Department. Civilians who can fire cops who are behaving badly. I have found that generally when there are consistent reports about anything from numerous people and groups of people there is some truth behind the reports. A couple of summers back when we had the ISAG convention, I saw some of it out my living room window (which overlooks the Hyatt Hotel, LaSalle Ave. and Grant Street) and walked past some of the activity on my way to and from work. What an over show of force. The City of Minneapolis has been sued on numerous occasions for police officer misbehavior and paid out many thousands of dollars as a result. How many cops are causing problems? Probably only a couple of handfuls on a force of nearly one thousand officers. Lets get those problem officers out of there. They are a cancer on the department. Change needs to come from the top. Let's start with new leadership of the Minneapolis Police Department. Leadership in the central office and in the problem precincts. Let's get this thing fixed before we have more problems that cost us another pile of tax dollars and more people are unnecessarily hurt. Terrell --------------------------------------------------------------- Terrell Brown Loring Park _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
