Problems, problems, problems. It seems like Minneapolis Police Department doesn’t seem to get out of trouble. Worst than that every day brings a new problem for the Department. Police Brutality (officers beating ordinary Working Joes), Civil Actions against the Department (Sgt. Giovanni Veliz recently introduced a Civil Action against the Department accusing the Department of Discrimination against him because of his origin, race and his struggle to make the Department comply with the Federal Mediation Agreement signed 2 years ago), Civil Actions against the Department because of supposed irregularities in the hiring process of officers last September (Daniel Huggar’s case) and strong accusations coming from the PCRC because the Department and the city have failed to comply with the Federal Mediation Agreement adding to the already long list of problems the department faces.
Minneapolis Police Department has obviously become the weakness of R.T. Rybak’s administration and seems like a real headache for the city. Minneapolis faces next Tuesday’s election with a serious deficit of agents on the streets, with a serious lack of diversity in the force and an internal struggle that is beginning to look like a little mutiny.
It is no secret that Minneapolis Police Federation strongly opposed William McMannus as Chief of Police two years ago and everybody knows that Mayor Rybak’s decision to hire Chief McMannus brought a lot of anger and dismay inside the force. The struggle between the Mayor’s Office and Police Federation has now moved into a different scenario and today is being fought in the political arena. Minneapolis Police Federation has endorsed Peter McLaughlin and the fight is getting stronger by the day.
Things are getting worse because, adding to this internal struggle, minorities are raising their voices and strongly complaining because they feel deceived and betrayed by the Mayor. Of course, after two years of the Federal Mediation Agreement, we all expected to see some changes, some improvements in the diversity field and we all thought that we were going to see the implementation of the 82 points of the agreement. Nothing happened. The city hasn’t complied with the agreement and after two years, minorities are still waiting for diversity in the force, for improved Police-Community relations and for a real commitment from the Mayor’s office. None of the 82 points on the Federal Mediation Agreement have seen light and the relations between the Mayor’s Office and the PCRC are becoming more like a shattered glass. Lots of questions have been raised under the light of the facts but so far there are no answers to those questions. The most important one and the one that matters the most to Minneapolis’s minorities is, why hasn’t the Department complied with the Federal Mediation Agreement? Why, after two years, we haven’t heard of a realistic plan to hire members of the minorities in the force? Why have the rest of the 82 provisions on the Federal Mediation Agreement been completely ignored? And When does the Mayor think is the right time to start complying with the Federal Mediation Agreement?
Things are becoming more and more odd inside Police Department and, thanks to information provided by confidential sources, we know that Chief McMannus has raised the issue and he has supported several times diversity in force. We know that Chief McMannus had serious concerns about the list of officers hired last September, because the process didn’t absolutely complied with the Federal Mediation Agreement. It seems like his concerns were ignored and the process came to an end and became a real fraud to the minorities who expected that the new batch of officers announced by the Mayor complied with the Federal Mediation Agreement. During the October 23rd debate (at Sagrado Corazon Church in South Minneapolis), Mayor Rybak defended his decision stating that the city was in desperate need of officers in the streets, that “lateral entry” was the fastest way to provide those agents and that was the reason why most of the applicants were white. Thanks to the Civil Action introduced by Daniel Huggard we know now that at list one African-American applied for “lateral entry” and that he wasn’t hired, even tough he is POST qualified. He claims he was discriminated and that the Department illegally expunged his record, adding more problems to the long list of problems of the Department.
The diversity issue hasn’t been resolved and this issue is becoming a strong issue among the minorities. We know now that Police Department is facing serious problems and under the light of the facts we ask ourselves what is going on inside the Police Department? Cause there’s no doubt that something wrong is going on.