A public pledge by nine of the 13 elected members of the Minneapolis City Council on June 7, 2020, to "defund police" garnered significant attention for the police abolition movement, as well as considerable political backlash.[3][4][5] The goals of the "defund police" pledge were never fully defined by city counsel members at the time of the June 7, 2020, pledge and the effort largely collapsed in the following months. A majority of Minneapolis city residents, including a large number of persons from the Black community, opposed a reduction in the size of the city's police force.
[6][7]
Public discussion in 2020 about changing the city's policing policies came during a surge in violent crime, which disproportionately affected people of color in the city.
[8][7][9] At the end of 2020, the city council's decision to shift 4.5 percent of the city's police annual budget to violence prevention programs fell well short of the sweeping changes demanded by activists and pledged by local lawmakers earlier in year.
[5][10] Though the city council committed to maintaining the same number of police officer positions, attrition and disability claims left the department with 200 fewer police officers, and city residents grew frustrated by the lack of a police presence and slower response times to 911 calls.
[1][11]
A ballot measure to remove minimum staffing levels for sworn officers, rename the Police Department as the Department of Public Safety and shift oversight of the Police Department from the Mayor to the City Council was put before voters in the November 2021 municipal election.
[12] It required the support of 51 percent of voters in order to pass. The measure failed by a 56.2 percent to 43.8 percent vote margin.
[2]
