Pass the amendment, jettison bad cops

I'm glad we finally know what the proposed Minneapolis police reform charter amendment will say. Now we can talk about what it does and doesn't do.

If there was any point to the furor over George Floyd's murder, it was about finding a way to get rid of bad cops, which had become almost impossible unless someone was killed by one. Historically we've left police firings and discipline to the police themselves, believing that we could rely on their professionalism and objectivity to get the job done. George Floyd's murder showed how badly our trust was misplaced.

Meanwhile, the state Legislature and our city leadership have clogged up our legal system with laws, administrative policies and labor contract provisions that protect bad cops.

The main one is a state law that says a civilian review board can't directly discipline or fire a police officer. You'll find it at Minnesota Statutes Section 626.89, Subdivision 17.

Only the "chief law enforcement officer of any unit of government" can discipline or fire a cop. In Minneapolis, that's Chief Medaria Arradondo, not Mayor Jacob Frey or the City Council. Thus, the arguments over who should have "complete control" over the Minneapolis Police Department, and whether the MPD should have one boss or 13, are beside the point. When it comes to complete control over discipline, police are mostly a law unto themselves. The charter amendment doesn't and can't change that. Repealing Subdivision 17 could.

The Minneapolis Office of Police Conduct Review (OPCR), our civilian review board, reflects the control that the MPD has over its own discipline. Short of suing a cop civilly, or convincing a state or federal prosecutor to bring criminal charges against him or her, the only way to bring a Minneapolis police officer to book is to file a complaint with the OPCR.

An OPCR complaint triggers an elaborate bureaucratic process, every step of which is full of ways that a complaint can be dismissed or shunted to "coaching." If a complaint survives to the end of this process, it lands on the desk of the chief law enforcement officer — Arradondo. And he can do anything he wants with it, just as Subdivision 17 says he can.

Had the people whom I represented in 30 years of public defense work had all these protections, I might never have lost a case. The proposed charter amendment does not — cannot — change any of these protections.

It's a mystery to me why the existence of Subdivision 17, the toothlessness of the OPCR, and the flaws in the labor agreement between Minneapolis and its cops have not been front and center in the debate about what's to be done after George Floyd's murder. What should have been a discussion over how to get direct civilian control over police degenerated into a food fight over "abolishing police."

Nine of our City Council members hung that millstone around their own necks with their unfortunate performance at Powderhorn Park just after George Floyd's murder. Nonetheless, these council members were voicing a legitimate frustration with a police department that seemed out of control.

Like many, I feel this frustration every day. As a result, I will hold my nose and vote for the charter amendment.

For all the things it doesn't do, it does do one thing — it gets rid of the obligation to maintain a police force. Not police in general, mind you. There's no requirement to abolish police. But at the moment, the only police force in Minneapolis that is available to be maintained is the one that we've got.

Nobody's going to abolish police in Minneapolis. The year of misery that North Siders have gone through has made it plain that abolishing police would lead to just the kind of mayhem predicted by anti-amendment people. Our city leaders may be callow and feckless, but they're not politically suicidal. And if they are, then we the people can throw them out in November.

I hope that if the charter amendment passes, our less-than-stellar city leadership, or its successors, will come up with something to replace the MPD that won't glorify blue warriors, buttress the police wall of silence, and thoroughly earn the distrust of so many of the people it polices.

If it does, it will have been worth the gamble.