police

On New Year's Eve, our community gathered for a noise demonstration in downtown Minneapolis in support of prison abolition and in solidarity with incarcerated folks. Officers swarmed the scene, abruptly making violent arrests without dispersal orders. It is an abuse of power to disperse a protest without issuing such an order. Instead of ticketing or releasing folks - which is the norm - our friends and relatives were held over the holiday weekend under probable cause charges, which historically has been used by police to give extra time to justify otherwise unlawful arrests that violate everyone’s first amendment rights to protest.

Please be very suspicious of today’s police strategic leak around the investigation of “Umbrella man” who broke windows at the E. Lake St Autozone during the Minneapolis Uprising.

Ever since the Minneapolis Uprising, different police brutality groups have been grappling with how to deal with the mass popularity of the “Abolish the Police” demand - and the shocking maneuver of the City Council to at least pay lip service to this demand.

On this date in 1934 the Minneapolis Police opened fire on strikers in the warehouse district, shooting 67 picketers and killing two men – a Teamster and an unemployed supporter.

Here in Minneapolis, we are in the first "trough" of the wave of the uprising. MAJOR concessions have been granted by institutions cutting ties with the MPD and the City Council (including members who have been consistently obstructionist to the movement against policing) announcing a plan for abolishing the MPD.