Star Tribune
How should Minneapolis public safety reform be done? Report offers a roadmap
More than three years after a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd, sparking an international outcry, Minneapolis has a plan.
On Tuesday, the city released a report from a Harvard-based team that seeks to chart a long-term vision not only for law enforcement, but for the root causes of crime and how to heal from the trauma it brings.
What it lacks in specifics — there are no estimates for costs or personnel, or a concrete timeline — the report, titled “Minneapolis Safe and Thriving Communities,” makes up for in ambition.
Chief author Antonio Oftelie called the 143-page outline “the most ambitious plan around public safety, community safety in the nation” and offered benchmarks to get it started over the next year, although he emphasized the vision could take decades to be fully realized.
While many of the ideas aren’t new to those following police reform efforts — such as emphasizing alternatives to policing where officers with guns aren’t needed — city leaders welcomed the report as a blueprint to overlay the various initiatives in scattered stages of funding or debate.
A host of city officials including Mayor Jacob Frey, City Council President Andrea Jenkins and Community Safety Commissioner Cedric Alexander hailed the report at a news conference Tuesday. All suggested they would adopt the bulk of its nonbinding recommendations made by a third party paid with nontaxpayer funds.
On Wednesday, the document will be formally presented to the City Council’s Public Health and Safety Committee, where it will face vetting from council members not generally aligned with Frey and Jenkins and who have accused them of moving too slowly on reform.
The recommendations come as the city finds itself subject to a growing number of roadmaps and guidelines for public safety — some with the force of law behind them — after outside investigations issued scathing findings directed at the Police Department.
In March, the city reached an agreement with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights over how police investigate crimes, use force and hold problem officers accountable. Last month, the Department of Justice concluded that the Police Department engaged in a pattern of racist and abusive behavior, a finding that is expected to lead to a yearslong consent decree overseen by a federal court.
Three years in the making
Oftelie’s recommendations have been in the works since 2020.
A Minneapolis native, he serves as executive director of Harvard University’s Leadership for a Networked World and is the federal monitor of an 11-year-old consent decree between Seattle and the Department of Justice.
Growing up, he said, his family benefited from Minneapolis police — but he was also aware of problems between officers and the communities they serve, especially in predominantly nonwhite neighborhoods.
He said that after watching the video of Floyd’s murder from his home in Massachusetts, he felt compelled to get involved.
“The light was shining on Minneapolis and we wanted to do something,” he said Tuesday. Conversations with city officials started soon after.
In the spring of 2021, the city announced it was working with Oftelie’s team, which is being funded by about $400,000 in donations from the Pohlad Family Foundation, McKnight Foundation, Minneapolis Foundation and Joyce Foundation.
The timeline for when — or if — Oftelie’s recommendations would be adopted has shifted as the city has shuffled its bureaucracy following a voter-approved charter amendment and efforts to reorganize its public safety responses. In 2021, the city suggested the results of Oftelie’s work would be delivered around the end of that year.
In July 2022, Oftelie gave one of two updates to the council and said he would provide the city’s incoming and inaugural public safety commissioner “a seamless flow of work” as soon as he stepped into the role.
However, nearly a year after Alexander started the job, it remained unclear what the overarching plan was.
The report outlines a “robust continuum of services” that the city should provide residents, broken down into three categories: violence prevention, response to community safety incidents and restorative justice. Within a year, the report recommends that the city:
- Establish an executive leadership team and community advisory board
- Develop a multiyear implementation and financial plan
- Design a governance and operations plan
- Initiate policy and practice committees and work groups
- Implement a community communications plan and progress dashboard
Frey estimated the plan would cost “millions” of dollars — on top of costs to comply with the state and federal agreements — but offered no further specifics.
Read the report:
When the Minnesota Supreme Court this week declined to hear an appeal by the University of St. Thomas regarding the environmental impact of its new hockey/basketball arena under construction, neighbor and arena foe Dan Kennedy said the “ethical” thing for the university to do was stop construction until neighbor concerns are addressed.
Not going to happen, university officials said Thursday.
While a public review of a revised Environmental Assessment Worksheet continues through Nov. 7, construction of the 5,000-seat Lee and Penny Anderson Arena continues. In an e-mail Thursday, a university spokesman said the arena is expected to be completed in fall 2025.
“The University of St. Thomas is aware of the Minnesota Supreme Court’s decision to deny its petition to appeal and is reviewing the potential impacts of this decision,” an emailed statement from St. Thomas said. “Last week, the City of St. Paul published an updated EAW for public comment, and that process will continue. Construction of the Lee & Penny Anderson Arena will also continue, as permitted by law.”
But Kennedy said he believes that decision is not only wrong, but illegal. Because the state Court of Appeals this summer ruled the project’s first environmental review was inadequate, its site plans and building permits are invalid, said the president of Advocates for Responsible Development.
“We need somebody to specifically tell the University of St. Thomas that they must comply with the law,” Kennedy said. “This is an institution of higher learning, with a law school. They should comply with the law.”
Kennedy said he thought the Minnesota Court of Appeals had insisted on exactly that. In August, the appellate court ordered the city and university to conduct a new Environmental Assessment Worksheet. The previous assessment didn’t do enough to study the arena’s potential harm to the neighborhood’s parking, traffic and air quality, the court ruled.
“The reason why is that more sunlight in the morning time helps reinforce waking up, and having less light in the evening is less stimulation,” he said. “So when we’re winding down, preparing for sleep, having fewer hours of sunlight in the evening can help promote that process of falling asleep.”
Akingbola acknowledges that it can be sad to walk out of work or school when it’s already dark out, but in the long run, standard time is the way to go.
The U.S. already tried daylight savings year round in 1974
Despite the medical advice, there have been calls in recent years to make daylight savings time permanent.
Sen. Mary Kiffmeyer, R-Big Lake, tried to pass a bill as recently as 2021 to make daylight savings time permanent, but it did not pass the Legislature.
The U.S. tried once before. According to Minnesota Star Tribune archives, due to an energy crisis, President Richard Nixon passed a law in January 1974 that made daylight savings a year-round thing.
A month into it, the Minneapolis Tribune ran an article saying there were calls to reverse the decision because there were more accidents in the pre-dawn darkness, particularly involving school children waiting for the bus. Under daylight savings time in January, sunrise wasn’t until well after 8 a.m. in Minnesota.
Karl-Anthony Towns may be in New York City, but his heart is in Minnesota.
On Wednesday night, Towns had some sweet seats for a Billie Eilish show at Madison Square Garden with his partner, Jordyn Woods, when she caught him watching the Timberwolves play the Chicago Bulls in a preseason game on his phone. Her video, posted to her Instagram story, made rounds on social media Thursday.
In the video, flames are literally spewing out from Eilish’s stage, lights are flashing all around and others in the crowd are head bobbing. And there is Towns, holding his phone in both hands and muttering to himself as the Timberwolves are down 88-75 late in the third quarter in a meaningless game.
“I promise he was enjoying the concert,” Woods wrote in the video’s caption.
The Wolves would go on to lose that game, 125-123. A nail-biter.
Towns’ trade to the New York Knicks for Julius Randle and others stunned the NBA world and all of Minnesota, where he was a beloved player for nine seasons and a leader on a team rapidly ascending toward championship contention.
“It was a lot of emotions,” Towns said. “Some amazing moments and times in nine years of my life in Minnesota, a place that I’ve called home. Guys who are not just teammates to me but brothers. We were like brothers. It definitely was a wild day, definitely coming to work.”
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