Minneapolis violence interrupter threatens violence to City Council over funding

A prominent north Minneapolis pastor interrupted a Monday Minneapolis City Council committee meeting and made threatening statements, then doubled down in a Facebook Live video posted Tuesday night.

The Rev. Jerry McAfee — whose nonprofit has done violence prevention work for years — brought a council committee meeting to a halt Monday when he went on a five-minute rant about the council considering temporarily moving some violence prevention programs to Hennepin County.

In a statement released Wednesday night, Minneapolis police said the department had met with council leadership as well as McAfee.

“No crime has occurred; however, we are working with building security to ensure everyone’s safety,” according to Minneapolis police spokesman Sgt. Garrett Parten.

The full council is scheduled to vote on the proposal Thursday, and McAfee’s comments have become a flashpoint for a broader — and impassioned — debate over the city’s violence prevention efforts. That debate has festered in the years after George Floyd was murdered, as various figures have disagreed on how to approach violence prevention beyond police officers.

It’s a nuanced and complicated situation, but here’s some of what’s been happening recently:

McAfee is pastor at New Salem Missionary Baptist Church, and runs nonprofits that have done violence prevention work for the city of Minneapolis. Last year, for example, the church won a nearly $306,000 city contract to do a “community trauma and de-escalation initiative.” His nonprofit called 21 Days of Peace received a $3 million direct appropriation from the Legislature in 2023.

The committee recessed and cut the video feed of the meeting after McAfee burst onto the podium and accused council members of ignoring his phone calls, saying he’s been shot at while doing violence prevention work.

“Maybe you all have not tasted the blood,” he said. “I need you to get your fire back for why you ran in the first place and take care of our people. ... I’m out there doing funerals. I’m out there on the block.”

McAfee talked about the violent situations where his people have stood between the police and angry groups. He accused the council of “playing games with my people.”

“What’s been happening to us is crazy,” he said. “You wanna ignore me? I done paid the price for 35 years in these streets and try to keep people safe.”

Then he suggested Council Member Jason Chavez was giving him a look and egged him on, accusing Chavez, who is gay, of acting like a girl.

“The way you lookin’ at me, if you wanna come behind that podium, you do it. I guarantee, I guarantee you will regret it,” McAfee said. “I got 40 years of shit in me from seeing my people die.”

When council members suggested he was being homophobic, McAfee scoffed and called them “heterophobes.” McAfee has opposed gay marriage in the past.

When Chavez asked if he was threatening them, McAfee said, “I don’t make threats, I make promises.”

He challenged the council to “put me out” but said if they tried to arrest him, his “people” would come.

As he left the meeting room, he told the council members, “I’ll see you again; that’s a promise.”

After he left the meeting, he told the Star Tribune that the council was trying to move funding to the county to steer funding to people who had gotten it in the past. He scoffed at the council suggesting he threatened them, calling it “childish foolishness.”

McAfee suggested in subsequent social media posts that he half expected to be arrested. He doubled down in a Facebook Live post Tuesday night, in which he said “Rev. McAfee ain’t hittin' nobody. I ain’t shot nobody. However I will if I have to. I don’t want to.”

After posting those remarks, Council Member Robin Wonsley sent a note to her constituents in which she said of McAfee: “This individual has now publicly made death threats.”

McAfee was angry over a proposal by some of the more progressive council members to have Hennepin County temporarily take over two once-lauded violence prevention programs they say have been mismanaged by the city’s Neighborhood Safety department.

The council will vote Thursday on whether to send $1.13 million to the county to administer the Group Violence Intervention and Youth Group Violence Intervention programs. Since Floyd’s 2020 police killing, the city has increasingly relied on alternatives to police, including violence prevention nonprofits sometimes staffed with people with criminal records to help reduce crime and diffuse tension.

Last year, some of the groups said the city stopped paying them, and the city was also sued for allegedly arbitrarily handing out millions of dollars in violence prevention contracts.

Luana Nelson-Brown, the former director of the Neighborhood Safety department, recently resigned amid scrutiny by council members who questioned why violence interrupters weren’t being sent to crime hotspots and why the group violence program had scaled back some work since 2023.

At one point during his tirade, McAfee said he could handle being told “no,” suggesting he’s turned down every time he puts in a proposal with the city’s Neighborhood Safety department, and that nepotism is at play.

Some council members accused public safety commissioner Todd Barnette of inflaming people like McAfee by accusing unnamed council members of wrongdoing, saying threats of violence have escalated since McAfee’s outburst.

On Wednesday evening, Barnette released the following statement: “I stand by every word I’ve said publicly and in the press. What Council Member Wonsley and other Council Members are trying to do avoids a fair process and is bad governance. There is not a single fact they can point to in order to substantiate their claims as it applies to me and the administration.”

Council President Elliott Payne said in a news release the Frey administration should work with the council to solve public safety challenges, “not endanger council members by making false accusations.”

Chavez released a statement saying McAfee made “alarming threats and homophobic and sexist remarks.”

“Disagreements must never escalate to violence,” Chavez wrote. “I have been in touch with council Leadership, who are taking these threats seriously and are working to implement a safety and security plan ahead of tomorrow’s meeting.”