Readers Write: Supreme Court, elder care, the police, affordable housing

Whether you agreed with one or both of the significant rulings made by the U.S. Supreme Court in recent days or not, we all ought to be reminded that the sitting judges are not stooges of the president who appointed them. During their confirmation hearings, opponents of Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh howled that they would obligingly rule on cases sympathetic to President Donald Trump's position on the matter.

So much for politicization of the court! While the court has differences in interpretation, we should be thankful that there is still integrity and nonpartisanship in at least one branch of government!

As chair of the Senate Family Care and Aging Committee, state Sen. Karin Housley claims to stand for the elderly and vulnerable, yet she provides no positive or helpful recommendations during this pandemic. Believe me, we would welcome productive ideas. Instead, she reliably criticizes every improvement effort made by the current administration, while conveniently ignoring the fact that it takes only one asymptomatic person to bring the virus into a care facility where it can spread quickly and silently.

I know how hard this pandemic is on families. I lost my father, my last parent, in April. He was 99, and lived in a congregate-care facility. We were both frustrated that we couldn't visit in person during the last six weeks of his life. Our last visit was over Zoom a day before he passed. We could have only 10 people at his funeral.

There are thousands of others who also suffer in this; we are far from alone, and we are all looking for something better. So, Sen. Housley, we would welcome any ideas you have to improve the current situation. But until you have something positive to say, you aren't helping.

Tuesday's front-page article on visitor restrictions in long-term care by Chris Serres gave credit to everyone for easing restrictions on outdoor visits except the most important person involved, state Sen. Karin Housley ("State eases visitor restrictions to allow elders to see families," June 16). Sen. Housley has worked passionately and tirelessly for long-term care residents for years now and has been their, and their loved ones', voice in the Minnesota Legislature. She has heard from countless families about how painful this isolation has been for their loved ones. Many have even died alone and afraid because of the restrictions. There can be solutions that are also safe, and she will fight for those.

The one advocate our elderly and disabled in long-term care can count on is Sen. Housley, and I believe it was unfair to everyone not to mention her in that article. Research her record and listen to her passionate speeches on this topic and you will be convinced she is the most important voice for long-term care residents in our state. Please give her the credit she deserves.

Before its riots, Detroit was already facing challenges that Minneapolis does not confront, but the pandemic represents an existential threat to all major cities. Skyscrapers are filled with empty offices serviced by elevators that can't be fully used until a vaccine is available. Many jobs will never return to the urban core because new methods of doing them remotely have already been discovered. The roles of cities as centers of commerce, business, entertainment and culture are all in question.

Now is not the time to compound likely post-pandemic business disinvestment by promoting poorly labeled and ill-defined proposals to disband the police department. I oppose removing the requirement for a police force from the Minneapolis charter.

Every time we are forced to observe an example of a "bad cop," as we all too often are, and are lectured to not paint all the "good cops" with the same brush, I wonder about these "good cops."

Sgt. Mike Quinn was a good cop, serving the Minneapolis Police Department with distinction from 1975 to 1999 — until he quit because he could no longer stand to watch the daily racism and brutality of his fellow officers. In 2004 (this is not a new problem, folks), Quinn, the son and brother of cops, wrote a book, "Walking with the Devil: The Police Code of Silence," about his experience on the MPD. In this book, Quinn makes a convincing case that, yes, only a small percentage of Minneapolis cops commit horrible acts of racism and brutality, but every cop on the MPD has seen it and looked the other way!

No one who has watched the callous killing of George Floyd can have much doubt about Derek Chauvin, but what about former officers Tou Thao, J Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane? Are they "good cops"? What about former officer Mohamed Noor's partner, Matthew Harrity, whose instinct after Noor killed Justine Damond was to protect Noor? What about the dozen Minneapolis cops who refused to cooperate with the investigation? Are they "good cops"?

While plans by the Minneapolis City Council to dismantle the police force dominate the headlines, shootings in the city are at an at least five-year record pace of 149 so far this year. Nearly half of those shootings occurred in the past three weeks, including nine on a single day ("9 shot in separate incidents, continuing a run of violence," June 18).

I wonder how the community activists and social workers that some council members have suggested could replace the police force would deal with the shooters. Maybe help them understand the social injustices and life deprivations that excuse their violent actions? Or perhaps ask the shooters to sign a petition in support of stronger gun control?

The serious question is whether Minneapolis residents will challenge the lunacy of the current council before the city is lost forever to crime and social chaos.

On Juneteenth, a date celebrated by African-Americans for almost 150 years, I read of the lack of affordable housing in Minneapolis (" 'It's a dogfight' as market tightens, prices rise," June 19). We need to reckon with our history of redlining and denying opportunities to our brothers and sisters of color to build wealth as so many white people have done.

We need our legislators to make affordable housing a key component of their work to dismantle the racist systems that have been built over centuries and continue to shackle our brown and black brothers and sisters.