Minneapolis Police riot mostly peaceful
(AP Photo/John Minchillo)

After George Floyd was killed and large sections of Minneapolis burned, the City of Lakes led the way in defunding its police department. But the prospect of less law enforcement seemed scary to some. When a CNN talking head asked City Council President Lisa Bender what residents should do if someone breaks into their home in the middle of the night, Bender responded that expecting police to help in a situation like that “comes from a place of privilege.”

The very idea of enforcing laws and arresting criminals for, well, committing crimes had suddenly become “problematic.” The answer, of course, was fewer cops and less law enforcement.

Now that the city’s police have been thoroughly denigrated, demonized, demoralized and defunded, the city’s crime rate has soared. This is what “reimagining law enforcement” looks like. Fewer cops, longer response times (if they show up at all), and more violent crime. Who could have possibly seen that coming?

Minneapolis city council

The problem has now gotten bad enough that the same City Council that did its level best to reduce the size and effectiveness of its law enforcement operation is wondering — out loud — where the hell all the cops have gone.

“Residents are asking, ‘Where are the police?’” said [Minneapolis] Council Member Jamal Osman, noting that constituents’ calls to the Minneapolis Police Department have gone unanswered. “That is the only public safety option they have at the moment. MPD. They rely on MPD. And they are saying they are nowhere to be seen.

Council President Lisa Bender accused police of intentionally not enforcing laws or making arrests.

“This is not new,” [Council President Lisa] Bender said. “But it is very concerning in the current context.”

– Megan Henney in Minneapolis City Council alarmed by crime surge after defunding police

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110 COMMENTS

    • Indeed, one giant joke.

      13 council Members comprised of…
      12 Democrats
      1 Green party

      Well the voters are gonna get what they voted for…Good and hard.

      My fields of fvcks is barren. None is given.

  3. Who could have seen this coming ?
    Clearly not the Minneapolis City Council.

    Me, myself, still surprised I didn’t pay my loan and got my car repossessed. Did not do my job and got fired. Did not brush my teeth and got cavities.

    If someone invented something like “cause-effect” relationship, now THAT, THAT WOULD BE GREAT.

    • You’re talking about knee-jerk-reactionaries here. People who lack the words “logic” and “reason” in their lexicon. Mollify everyone with grandiose gestures of “change”, to hell with the repercussions and fallout.

      It gets the votes! And the people dumb to vote for them, continue to do so.

      It’s a vicious cycle. Like a snake eating its tail. It never ends pretty.

    • And are the few remaining police, especially SWAT with their MRAPs, are now guarding the council members’ houses?

      Perhaps ANTIFA and BLM can provide the “People’s Political Police” where laws will be enforced according to Social Justice and Virtue Signaling.

    • I don’t know that I’d go that far, but there are quite a few politicians for whom I’d like to see the return of the tar and feathers.

      And in Minneapolis, who’s going to stop them? The police?

        • In the face of real danger those guards will melt away taking their guns with them as they go. But in reality this is what the city voted for, so despite turning into a small spot of 3rd world hell the city council won’t face what they deserve.

          Democrat hell holes can rot, I am much more concerned with the country as a whole. What are we going to do when the Democrats try to steal the election after Trump gets reelected. I don’t like the concept of John Roberts deciding who is going to be US President.

        • Private guards can’t be with them and their property all the time. Water balloons filled with Roundup thrown in their yards and flower beds, rocks and bricks thrown at their cars when parked outdoors. No worries, since are no police to call.

          “9-1-1 what’s your emergency?” “Someone threw a brick at my front door!” “Very well, ma’am. You may come down to any police substation that hasn’t been burned, and file a report between 9 and 4 any Tuesday or Thursday. Thank you for using Minneapolis 9-1-1. Have a nice day.”

  6. Across the river in St. Paul, budget cuts will reduce SPPD staffing to pre-2007 levels…. and the city council and mayor bitch that there is a lack of diverse candidates available. Gee, with how well they have the cop’s backs, it’s a wonder anyone wants the jobs. Meanwhile, currently the murder toll is at 24, the light rail has been abandoned by regular ridership- it’s more of a free riff-raff transport between Mpls. and St. Paul, and businesses are packing up and leaving at an unprecedented pace. But, we can still build bike lanes and “parklets” everywhere… Gee, if you’re ever in the area, stop in and see the new world Utopia. ( make sure you bring a gun or two)

    • My in-laws live just barely across the border in Wisconsin. Driving up from Iowa and taking 494 used to be our route.

      Now we avoid MN entirely when we visit. Permit to carry required and no recognition of our permits. Oh, well. Too bad, so sad. Minneapolis was overrated before. Now? Lol.

      • used to make base camp on hennepin for forays up to brainerd (world superbike).
        elkhart lake is much friendlier to carriers.

        • near sheboygboyg, 2 and a half nart from me on the slab. via 67 from beloit (town named for sound of nickel flipped in toilet) with taverns, it takes all day. brainerd is over 500mi. from here.

        • Not anymore. Hennepin County requires you to schedule an appointment to turn in your PTC paperwork now, a 15 minute block for a transaction that takes 2 minutes. They are currently booked out clear until December thanks to the ‘Rona.

    • Maybe they just need to loosen the requirements. If they didn’t require citizenship or English, we could transport scores of candidates from the southern border of Texas. Many could even provide their own handguns.

  7. They just need to hand out guns and power to all the burn, loot, murder crowd and declare them the new enforcers.

    • That is the intended direction. OBummer envisoned a police force stronger and better funded than the military. He wasn’t talking about out traditional LEOs. Just listen to the Leftys. They will tell you their direction. Think Burn/Loot/Murder and AntFarts on steriods.
      You’ve got enough guns. Hoard ammo. It’s gonna be a TRE……target rich environment. Domestice terrorism…er, peaceful demonstrating…..will skyrocket post election regardless of who wins. . If Trump, to de-stabilize and oust. If Biden, to implement the promised Socialist agendas and control. Coming to a street in front of your home.

      • Edit timed out…repost edited:
        That is the intended direction. OBummer envisoned a police force stronger and better funded than the military. He wasn’t talking about out traditional LEOs. Just listen to the Leftys. They will tell you their direction. Think Burn/Loot/Murder and AntFarts on steriods.
        You’ve got enough guns. Hoard ammo. It’s gonna be a TRE……target rich environment. Domestic terrorism…er, peaceful demonstrating…..will skyrocket post election regardless of who wins If Trump, to de-stabilize and oust. If Biden, to implement the promised Socialist agendas and control. Current “peaceful demonstrating” is merely initial probing, reaction testing, public de-sensitizing, tactic development, coordinating with Lefty governments, training, recruitment. Coming to a street in front of your home. Does your homeowners policy cover riot damage???? Know in advance what you will do to protect your property and loved ones. Have legal counsel on speed dial…..along with like minded support resources. It’s gonna get messy. Always does where Socialism/Communism takes root. History…learn from it or be doomed to repeat it.

  8. Wow!

    Talk about delusions, denial and, most importantly, deflection.

    The Mini City Council is a special kind of stupid.

  9. What the useful idiots don’t understand is that the entire “systemic racism” narrative is pushed so that the same politicians that have caused these problems for decades won’t be held responsible. Somehow, some white guy in middle America minding his own business and working his azz off to support his family is responsible for young black people being shot? Well yes because white silence is violence. How can he help and redeem himself you ask? It’s real easy, become a lefty activist, or at the very least, vote democrat.

    They don’t have to have specific examples of racism. Actual racism is never proven. It’s the police, therefore it’s racist. It’s gotten so absurd that you have young white useful idiots screaming “Racist!” at black cops. Now they’re indoctrinating children in tax payer funded schools to become democrat political activists. And the useful idiot, brain dead zombie horde marches on…No thinking required.

    • “What the useful idiots don’t understand is that the entire “systemic racism” narrative is pushed so that the same politicians that have caused these problems for decades won’t be held responsible.”

      Well… for now. But if you imagine that the hard-Left actually got its way, well “the whole system is racist” is their rallying cry so these people, being part of that system, are on “the list” too.

      I’ve wondered for years when liberals were going to realize that all those graffiti tags that say “Liberals get a bullet too” are not a joke. It’s straight outta Engels and for the true believers anyone guilty of “false consciousness” is just as guilty of “oppression” as anyone who’s actively and intentionally “oppressing”.

      • Yeah, some Dem officials have been getting that message recently, including the moron whose apartment complex was torched in an attempt to cook his ass. Then, they are SHOCKED, and must scurry off to call 911!

    • There has been systemic racism in place for decades, and it has favored black people, most of whom haven’t taken advantage of its features, preferring instead to vote for candidates who promise more free stuff for people who don’t want to work at all.

      So-called Equal Employment Opportunity, Head Start, quotas for college admission, quotas for hiring and promotion, and so on. I spent my whole career competing for jobs with companies who needed certain minorities rather than Caucasians. As a result, 70% of black infants are born out of wedlock, colleges have had to lower qualifications to enter and lower grade standards for passing courses and graduation, and our corporations have lost the advantage to foreign companies–except for the companies who use H1B visas to get qualified engineers from Asia.

      Yes, we have “systemic racism” alright.

  11. Be careful what you ask for and the residents that elected the braindead Marxist’s of Minneapolis are now awaking from their rainbow and unicorn dreams and discovering.

  12. I think it may be time to start killing intruders and hanging the bodies from trees to deter future criminals. Once they get the idea it is not safe to rob a neighborhood they will stay away. Vultures need to eat too.

    • England tried that, and placing severed heads on the Old Bailey’s fence. It didn’t have an appreciable effect on the crime rate, deterring only those who were hanged or beheaded.

        • LarryinTX,
          They didn’t have CSI, fingerprints, DNA testing, facial recognition, cameras, databases, networking, radios, helicopters, or even much in the way of real police either, yet still managed lower rates of most crimes through deterrence. Imagine uniting contemporary means of catching and convicting criminals with rational (non-snowflake) ideas of how criminals should be treated.

  13. I’ve always said the primary symptom of liberal mental disorder is the inability to connect cause and effect.

    • You are on to something there….

      To believe that these “elected officials” have such a complete lack of understanding of the real world consequences of their blatantly flawed decisions is amazing to me.
      When you reach a level of, ” My hand got burned when I touched the hot stove! Why?!” in governance, the time to throw out the current lot of officials is long past due.

      The lack of understanding of the simplicity of cause and effect is just staggering.

    • Depends on who you’re talking about. The real Lefties understand cause and effect just fine.

      They just want to cause effects that most people would find abhorrent and the Left doesn’t want to explain that until it’s too late to stop them.

      They’re not crazy or stupid and they’re not bluffing. Occasionally they even tell you what they’re doing but they know most people won’t believe it; see Kshama Sawant for an example of this.

      • I agree, there are a few who have things planned down to the microscopic level. Remember the Obamacare legislation debate? How this 2700 page document suddenly materialized and was passed before anyone could read it? Then it ballooned to some 20,000 pages after adding all the implementation and enforcement regs? Someone had it written prior, just waiting for the opportunity. The top level string pullers are not messing around.

        • The ACA was a mix of canned proposals from various Lefty think tanks and interest groups.

          The Democrats just cut and pasted them together. That’s why the ACA contains numerous internal contradictions. Like you have to buy insurance during open enrollment otherwise it’s illegal to purchase it. Or they tax “bad behavior” yet they taxed medical devices.

        • @Stryct
          Oh no, that was a fine not a tax for bad behavior. Our buddy in the black robe changed it to a tax. There is still no contradiction anyway. Using medical equipment costs the system money and is therefore bad behavior. You just have to think like a democrat and it all makes sense.

          I just wonder when congress is going to order everyone to buy Chinese made cars and tax us if we don’t. We’re already forced to by Chinese made PPE due to the mask requirement. Great racket they came up with, send out a virus worldwide, tell everyone someone else did it, tell them masks will reduce the spread, convert your factories to making masks, and, presto, a few million die but that’s OK, they make a fortune for the State and destroy a president who bested you in a trade deal!

        • The Dims always are pushing way out there programs. Green new deal, ERA etc. These haVe no chance of passage but serve to test the waters and get boilerplate legislation. When the time comes, compiling the Obamacare was easy.

  14. When a CNN talking head asked City Council President Lisa Bender what residents should do if someone breaks into their home in the middle of the night, Bender responded that expecting police to help in a situation like that “comes from a place of privilege.”

    Thank you Ms. Bender for handing the sane people of our nation a HUGE talking point on a silver platter. Now we can excoriate anyone in the ruling class who has a security detail for exercising “privilege” — and direct the ire of violent mobs toward them.

    • Privilege is overlooked as long as you’re fighting for the cause. Be sure to raise your fist and chant Black Lives Matter when asked to do so.

      • Dude,

        Privilege is overlooked as long as you’re fighting for the cause.

        That does seem to be the Progressive/far-Left modus operandi.

        Pretty much anything and everything is okay if their side does it — and pretty much anything and everything is wrong/bad if our side does it.

      • So if I raise my fist and chant blonde looters murder or whatever, then I can go ahead and shoot the mofo?

  15. RE: “Lisa Bender what residents should do if someone breaks into their home in the middle of the night, Bender responded that expecting police to help in a situation like that “comes from a place of privilege.”

    Lisa Bender you ignorant slut…That place of privilege as your sour puss piehole describes it is not free it comes from TAXPAYERS. Furthermore…Most calls for help to the police come from low income people who have no option but to reside in high crime areas thanks to democRat Party slave masters like yourself.

    My question to the queen of stupid Lisa Bender is…The amount Minneapolis will settle in a headline grabbing exorbitant Floyd lawsuit settlement has to come from somewhere so are you Lisa Bender and your cohorts robbing Peter to pay Paul and leaving citizens for the wolves?

  16. Build it, and the will come.
    Or,
    Defund them, and they will not be there! Who’d of thunk?
    Liberalism is a genetic defect. Think about that for a minute…

    They CANNOT think rationally. It is impossible. They ARE mentally retarded. In the true sense of the word retarded…slowed down mental response.
    They are incapable of logical, intellectual, thought!
    L-cubed…Leftist, liberal, loonies. Spread the word!

  17. City Council President Lisa Bender on what residents should do if someone breaks into their home in the middle of the night, Bender responded that expecting police to help in a situation like that “comes from a place of privilege.”

    When ur getting raped & killed we will be sure to tell the cops we did not give u privileges…for help..enjoy.

  19. “ Council President Lisa Bender accused police of intentionally not enforcing laws or making arrests.”

    I’m sure the same thing can be said about the states attorney/district attorney/city prosecutor in that dump.

  20. Wait, conditioning works? If the police have a fear of punishment for doing one part of their job, they will find reasons not to do it.

    Reap what you sow.

  21. The city council is correct that the remaining cops aren’t enforcing laws as aggressively as they had before.

    A police oficer friend told me that if he gets a call of a “suspicious person”, his first thought is OH GOD I HOPE HE’S NOT BLACK. Because he just doesn’t want every word and action he takes to be put under a microscope by people who have the luxury of time to analyze things he has to come up with on the spot.

  24. How many care what happens to these cities that vote leftards IN?!? Raise your hand👎👎👎👎👎👎😏

  26. Keep electing these stupid libs and see where your property values end up…You don’t deserve police protection, even if your taxes are paid up. You can’t send your kids over to the neighborhood park, because the homeless mob has taken it over…Time to leave these liberal shiteholes to their own demise…

  27. if they are not going to provide law enforcement people will just have to start carrying guns at all times to protect themselves or better yet get rid of everyone that voted to defund the police and rehire more cops

    • From the source article: “…remove $1 million from the police department and reallocate it toward the health department to hire “violence interrupters” who are intended to defuse potentially violent situations.”
      What if they cannot defuse an armed suicide or domestic dispute?

      • How do these “violence interruptors” descalate someone on a meth binge who has a knife and is chasing and slashing at anyone they see?

        • Well, after the first couple have succumbed to injuries received on the job, the rest of them will go out and get concealed carry permits, on the sly. Maybe even paid for by worker comp as a preventative.

  30. FREE KYLE & give him back his rifle,
    That should take care of the prob…🔫🔫🔫
    “””FREE KYLE”””

  31. The trick will be to figure out why in America the land of the Free, if you have a town over so many thousands it HAS TO BE DEMOCRAT? Most every municipality over 100k is solidly commiecrat, some unbroken for over 100 years.

    This goes beyond race and the changing demographics of the last 40 to 50 years, The Dems/socialists have had a monopoly over the masses since 1900 at least. But why is that? It’s a great new survival tactic, make the cities unbearable and drive the democrat contagion to the uninfected rural ares. We know and I have seen these fools never learn and keep voting stupid in their new homes. CO, VA, NC, went this way and now Texas is on the edge.
    As I said this was the case way back when the country was 91% white so it’s not a race thing. Not a Illegal, or black thing. But why give your allegiance to the party of un-freedom?

    • Most big city residents are either “highly” educated or they’re poor. Both demographics favor democrats. There’s been a trend in the past two decades to move back into and fix up the inner cities. It looks like that trend is beginning to reverse, at least in the recently violent cities.

    • The cities are where the factories used to be. Those factories employed pretty much all the unskilled labor outside of farming. Jobs for unskilled labor attracted people with…no skills. Those unskilled also tended to be less educated. As manufacturing in America declined, unskilled labor in the cities began losing their jobs. Poor, uneducated people do one thing very well: procreate. The smart people in the Democrat party didn’t take many years to learn that poor, uneducated people are pretty easy to influence. Also being familiar with the politics of a democracy, they have long employed the philosophy explained by Alexis de Tocqueville in 1835:

      “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”

      Promise the poor anything. They want to believe you’ll deliver, and they’ll vote for you. You don’t even have to deliver on your promises. Just make the same promise again. If anyone calls you on it, you blame the other party. Sheila Jackson Lee, congresswoman from Houston, has proven that works every time. Lee is so ignorant, she has introduced new legislation that already existed!

      Back to the cities. The founding fathers could see the risks of masses of uneducated, easily influenced people. That’s why the President is not elected by popular vote. It’s also why voting was originally limited to property owners. That should have remained. Now we have only the Electoral College.

      • “Lee is so ignorant, she has introduced new legislation that already existed!”

        That would be hilarious if it weren’t so sad. Tax payers fund an army of assistants for members of congress, and that’s the best they can do? Pathetic.

  32. Is it really possible that the residents of that city refuse to vote the libertards out of office? Bender’s statements remind me of trying to talk to my ex-wife. Totally frustrating and gaslighting.

  36. No, they did not defund the police. That’s Fake News. Police continue to enjoy a massive budget.

    Cops are pissed about their bad apples being called out. They failed to clean up their own ranks, and are now sulking over the backlash.

    Meanwhile criminal elements thrive. Taking advantage as criminals always do. In this case of the public mood and the less than entirely responsible police who got their feelings hurt.

  37. “Stop doing what we say we want you to do!”

    I’ll bet if somebody breaks into THAT twit’s home in the middle of the night, THEIR privilege would need to be protected.

    “Stop criticizing us for committing crimes or we’ll stop pretending to protect you from crime!” said the police. They BOTH got what they apparently wanted.

    They and the cops deserve each other.

  38. First the police are too heavy handed and hurting people. Now they are accused of not being there. Imagine that. Maybe the city council should patrol the streets.

  39. When do city council members next stand for re-election seems an appropriate question. Nothing above noted excuses criminal antics by sworn law enforcement.

  40. To me, the happy medium would be just get out of the way. If a thug attacks me and I win, that should be the end of it. Why should I need to call the cops, I don’t need assistance. Garbage truck should pick up the body and transport it to the garbage heap.

  41. From the article:
    ‘This is what “reimagining law enforcement” looks like.’

    No, that is what a failure of imagination and forethought looks like. They failed to have a plan to replace the police up and running before they began replacing police. As one of my first bosses used to say, “proper prior planning prevents p**s poor performance.” People on the receiving end of Minneapolis’ graft and corruption will be sure to keep those idiots in power, though.

  42. HAS ANYONE in the press actually asked the city council if they plan on refunding the police to increase the police presence in the affected neighborhoods?

  43. They didn’t succeed in defunding, but this is the result anyway. Any cop that uses force for ANY reason in that city is out of his or her mind unless it’s to repel an attack upon their person. And the moment you start pulling people over or dealing with criminals, you increase the chance that you get attacked.

    People say ‘that’s what they signed up for.’ Cops sign up knowing that they might be attacked by criminals, that IS part of the job description- but not that they can’t defend themselves.

  45. I used to travel to Minneapolis a few times a year 10 yrs ago. I really liked that city. The gerbil tubes in winter were very convenient. Good food and great bars. Big time football and baseball. Friendly people. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?

  49. When you have a city council with that number of idiots, it is just an example of the population at large. The assholes are gonna get what they voted for, and cry about it the entire time.

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