Judge Jamie L. Anderson last week ruled in favor of a group, Upper Midwest Law Center, that sued the city government after a slashed police budget was inevitably followed by a jump in violent crime, including homicides, in the city of 430,000 that was the scene of George Floyd’s death.
Minneapolis Public Radio reported in a December 2020 story that Mayor Jacob Frey signed a city budget that removed nearly $8 million from the Minneapolis Police Dept. The city, under a national spotlight, allocated those funds for crime prevention such as “mental health crisis teams.”
In a February 2021 story, just two months later, The Star-Tribune newspaper reported about 200 fewer officers were on the city’s payroll.
According to Judge Anderson’s ruling, the City of Minneapolis must have a police force of at least 730 officers by June 2022, which is more than the 669 officers the city plans to hire by that date.
The judge was relying on a city ordinance that requires a specific ratio of police officers to the city population.
Randy Sutton of Law Enforcement News Network tells One News Now he was shocked by the ruling and calls it a “fascinating turn of events” to witness.
“Never before have I ever heard of a court ordering a city to hire cops,” he says.
He predicts, however, that Minneapolis will have a hard time finding that many qualified – and willing – candidates to put on a police uniform.
“How are they going to hire that many cops when they can’t even keep the cops that they have?” he asks. “You could double the pay, and I don’t know if they’re going to be able to draw enough officers to get anywhere near the requirement.”
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Copyright American Family News. Reprinted with permission.
Kudos to Judge Anderson—there is a light of hope in the city of Minneapolis yet.
BUT will he have any power to DO anything about it, if the CITY refuses to follow his order??
Why would anyone want to be a police officer in Minneapolis or any other inner city, with the police officers hands and legs tied up by the politicians and with the abuse that the police must take, from the less than animals on the street, because of the politicians.
I’d extend it to the ENTIRE STATE, not just the cities..
“The city, under a national spotlight, allocated those funds for crime prevention such as “mental health crisis teams.”,,,,,,,This one already is proving dangerous to Democrats, because once the dysfuntional mental health of their community that originates in Socialist secular propaganda gets cured, Judges start ruling for the benefit of THE PEOPLE, and Democrats start losing elections.