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Minneapolis voters decide to KEEP police force, Internet says 'they got it right'

A user tweeted, 'it’s good to see that Minneapolis voters haven’t completely lost their minds'

Voters in Minneapolis rejected the proposal to replace the city's police department with a new Department of Public Safety on November 2. A national uprising against police brutality and racism was ignited after George Floyd was killed by Derek Chauvin in the presence of three other police officers. The slogan for 'Defund the Police' and the idea of police abolition was introduced across the nation. The proposal asked residents if they wished to “to remove the Police Department and replace it with a Department of Public Safety that employs a comprehensive public health approach." This department was to be jointly controlled by the mayor and City Council. 

The proposed department, if appointed, would have employed social workers and mental health experts. The proposal was developed by a group called Yes4Minneapolis that helped collect 20,000 signatures from residents to put it on the ballot. The group denied claims that the amendment would "defund or abolish" the police but another group that opposed this measure stated that the campaign's supporters "want to make Minneapolis into the national experiment for defunding and abolishing the police." On November 2, all precincts reported their tallies which revealed more than 56% voters had rejected the ballot. 

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Internet says Minneapolis 'got it right'

A user tweeted, "It's good to see that Minneapolis voters haven't completely lost their minds." Another user tweeted, "Minneapolis voted down a referendum to abolishing the police and replacing them with social workers. Glad to see the voters in Minneapolis still have some common sense." A third tweeted, "The voters in Minneapolis overwhelming and intelligently voted against the Defund the Police measure. Yay for the good guys." Another user opined, "I still can't believe that 43% of voters in Minneapolis thought "sure let's just abolish our police." #wokeism is a disease." Another user wrote, "Minneapolis has soundly rejected a referendum to defund the police. The woke agenda is getting destroyed all over the country tonight. Sanity is finally starting to win."

Despite the loss, JaNaé Bates, a leader of the Yes4Minneapolis campaign that supported creating the new safety department told supporters at an election loss party that despite the loss, the conversation around policing had changed forever. "The people of Minneapolis are deserving to have a law enforcement agency that is accountable and transparent, and that is not what we have today," she said. "We'll continue to push for our people."