By Judi McLeod ——Bio and Archives--June 8, 2020
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“Nine of the council’s 12 members appeared at a rally in a city park Sunday afternoon. (CBC) "It is clear that our system of policing is not keeping our communities safe," Lisa Bender, the council president, said. "Our efforts at incremental reform have failed, period.” “Bender went on to say she and the eight other council members that joined the rally are committed to ending the city's relationship with the police force and "to end policing as we know it and recreate systems that actually keep us safe.”
“Community activists have criticized the department for years for what they say is a racist and brutal culture that resists change. “The state of Minnesota launched a civil rights investigation of the department last week, and the first concrete changes came Friday when the city agreed to ban chokeholds and neck restraints. “A more complete remaking of the department is likely to unfold in coming months.”As for Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who New York Post reporter Miranda Devine calls a “half-price Justin Trudeau”? Well, it seems he’s very much a part of the Act. “Minneapolis’ boy of a mayor, Jacob Frey, proves that no matter how much you abase yourself to the mob, you can never be woke enough. (New York Post, June 7, 2020)
“In a scene reminiscent of a Maoist struggle session, he stood before two black protest organizers Saturday and confessed through a mask into a microphone that he was “coming to grips with my own brokenness.” “But the organizers, standing on a platform above him, weren’t interested in providing therapy for this 38-year-old man-child. “Yes or no?” asked a woman with a microphone. “Will you commit to defunding the Minneapolis Police Department … We don’t want no more police.” “Poor Frey couldn’t bring himself to say yes so his fate was sealed. “Get the f–k out of here!” she snarled and he was forced into a ritual walk of shame through the jeering crowd as they chanted “Go home, Jacob!” “The only thing missing was a sign around his neck listing his transgressions. “Frey also made a spectacle of himself in front of hundreds of people in a Minneapolis chapel at a memorial service Thursday for George Floyd, the black man whose death under the knee of a white police officer has sparked nationwide protests.
“Kneeling beside Floyd’s golden casket, Frey’s body trembled with great heaving sobs, as people nearby looked on in wonderment. “Someone should tell this half-price Justin Trudeau to stop wallowing in his own brokenness and start repairing his broken city. “There is no patience for self-indulgence amid the ruins. If Minneapolis had a grownup mayor instead of a snowflake, the rioting and looting of the past two weeks might have been nipped in the bud and America spared more pain piled on top of the pandemic. “Instead, the nation suffers due to one man’s inadequacies. “Frey is the perfect representative of a Democratic Party that has moved so far left it is eating itself alive.Meanwhile, even though Minneapolis City Council is far more bluster than muster, even though the city’s vapid mayor is more like Little Boy Bossed than Little Boy Lost, the show, staged in part by Black Lives Matter, must go on.
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