Minneapolis and Seattle - a tale of two cities

"This past Sunday, a veto-proof majority of the council announced plans to disband its police department and invest in community-based public safety programs.

According to Friday's resolution, the city council will begin a year-long process of engaging "with every willing community member in Minneapolis" to develop a new public safety model.

"We acknowledge that the current system is not reformable — that we would like to end the current policing system as we know it," council member Alondra Cano said.

The council declared it would create a "transformative new model" of public safety in the city.

A "Future of Community Safety Work Group," will be formed and will include staff from city departments, including the offices of violence prevention and civil rights.

The council also voted unanimously on Friday to end the local emergency order that had been declared due to protests in the wake of Floyd's death. "  Forbes

----------------

And then out in Seattle we have the "summer of love" mayor on TeeVee accepting something that looks like a miniature version of the Paris Commune while being framed on one side by "Old Glory" and on the other by Washington State's green flag with the face of George Washington (a prominent slaveholder and planter) featured thereon.  Will it not be necessary to change the name of the state?

To repeat my earlier assertion it seems inevitable that there will be more, many more, "Communes" springing up across the US.  The locale will be all important of course.  I would recommend against trying this gambit anywhere in Texas.  OTOH, just about anywhere in California will be fertile ground and Boston might be welcoming to an "Autonomous" enclave somewhere downtown.  Any Democrat run area is a possibility really.

Trump is at West Point bloviating today.  He has the right instincts concerning the need to maintain public order but he has never learned how to drive the machine of the Executive Branch and his personnel decisions have often been appalling.  

It would be interesting to learn what a President Joe Biden and then the wise woman of color who succeeds him would do with the ongoing development of this situation.  pl

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/06/12/minneapolis-city-council-unanimously-votes-to-replace-police-with-community-led-model/#78964a8471a5

Comments

[The Twisted Genius]

There’s another autonomous zone (AZ)in Philadelphia that seems to be making a go of it. The Workers Revolutionary Collective, the Black and Brown Workers Cooperative and Occupy PHA (Philadelphia Housing Authority) renamed a Philly homeless encampment as Camp Maroon. They are mostly black and demanding this and several other homeless camps be recognized as cop free autonomous zones. CHAZ is getting all the publicity, but this one in Philly appears to be more seriously addressing a real problem - homelessness. That’s probably due to the presence of so many white anarchists in a trendy neighborhood in Seattle. A largely black homeless encampment is just not photogenic enough.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=mPsl5KTMp1c&feature=emb_logo

Protesters tried to set up an AZ in Asheville, NC. The cops broke that one up earlier this weekend. There’s talk of one going up in Portland, Oregon. Nothing there yet.

[longarch]

Regarding Seattle, I was impressed by this first-hand account:

https://www.theorganicprepper.com/truth-seattle-riot/

I noted the particular passage:

FINALLY the SPD Administration gave the green light and LESS LETHAL forms of riot control were deployed. As objects were continued to be thrown at us, SWAT finally deployed CS gas. The “protesters” proceeded to start vandalizing everything in the area. They smashed business windows, burned U.S. flags, lit dumpsters and other items on fire, and threw things on fire at us. We pushed them back in all directions about half a block but for some reason, we stopped pushing them back. They then regrouped and continued to vandalize the area with spray paint, breaking windows, and lighting things on fire. Around that time, the Guard was pulled back and we left East Precinct.

I returned the very next day at East Precinct, ready to continue the daily fight with these anarchists and communists. When I arrived, they were boarding up East Precinct. City employees were removing all the barriers and taking everything they could out of the precinct. We were ordered to about-face and leave. We went to a different precinct where it was announced that Durkan had decided to abandon East Precinct and to give it to the “protesters.” As we watched, Antifa took over the East Precinct and they erected walls at the adjacent intersections with the barricades we had used. They armed themselves, proceeded to vandalize the East Precinct with spray paint, and they declared Capitol Hill a Cop-Free, Autonomous Zone (CHAZ). It was hard enough for me to watch, but I saw Officers that were assigned to the East Precinct for decades, shield their faces, and walk out of the room in tears. The Capitol Hill area of the City of Seattle, to include East Precinct, was surrendered by its elected officials to the terrorists…

The same site has the following relevant article, which may be worthy of a glance:

https://www.theorganicprepper.com/playbook-step/

[BillWade]

Back to the catalyst for all this:

https://medium.com/@gavrilodavid/why-derek-chauvin-may-get-off-his-murder-charge-2e2ad8d0911

It's a long very informative article. Basically, Officer Chauvin was in compliance with Minneapolis PD official procedures. It sure looked bad but the cop did what he was supposed to do.

[Divadab]

Defunding the police a remarkably bad idea and it really makes me wonder what happened to midwestern practicality?

As to CHAZ - all this hyperventilating by the right about some gay men and women with partially-shaved heads and tattoos running a soup kitchen is about on the same level as all the hyperventilating about Charlotte on the left. Much ado about very little.

[Fred]

Divadab,

So "some gay men and women with partially-shaved heads and tattoos " set up a six block area kitchen complete with barriers and armed guards? That's a heck of an interpretation of events.