Let's outsource Minneapolis policing

In the 1980s, Minneapolis had a colorful, reform-minded police chief, Tony Bouza. The mayor he served under, Don Fraser, was as low-key and understated as Tony was flamboyant. They were equal, however, in their determination to bring about a much healthier relationship between the cops and the people in the communities they were there to serve.

There have been four mayors and six police chiefs since then, counting current Chief Medaria Arradondo and current Mayor Jacob Frey. They, too, are united in their determination to bring about a much healthier relationship between cops and community. Bouza and Fraser failed, all their successors failed, and Arradondo and Frey will fail. The Minneapolis Police Department is broken beyond repair.

In the aftermath of the death of George Floyd, every past study and blue-ribbon commission report is being brought out, dusted off and examined for recommendations that could, this time, fix things. Really, this time we mean it, we will hear.

Let's do something radically different, yet utterly practical. Let's get the city of Minneapolis out of the police business. Let's outsource Minneapolis policing to the Hennepin County sheriff or the St. Paul Police Department. Contracting with outside law enforcement will bring three fast — and large — benefits.

First, although to take on the task of policing a city of 400,000 people the Sheriff's Office or St. Paul Police Department will need to hire a lot of Minneapolis cops, that's the point and that's the benefit. They will have to be hired. They will have to demonstrate their fitness to serve. Some, by their past record or current attitudes, will fail and be left behind.

Second, if Minneapolis no longer has its own Police Department, it also no longer has the toxic Minneapolis police union. Long headed by Trumper Bob Kroll, the union has stubbornly resisted every reform proposed by all those chiefs and mayors and City Councils and study commissions. After Floyd's death, the city's Park Board and school board, the University of Minnesota, three major arts organizations that hire security, and at least two other unions have severed all ties with and support of the Police Department.

Third, a huge expense goes away: the cost of settlements after cops do bad things. From 2007 through 2017, Minneapolis paid out $20 million in settlements. That was 35% of all payouts of all police jurisdictions in Minnesota for that period. Yet Minneapolis is only about 7% of the state's population. Then, in 2019, the city was presented with a bill for another $20 million, as the cost of settling just one incident, the murder of Justine Ruszczyk Damond.

This can be done. We're now 12 years into the successful merger of the Minneapolis library system into that of Hennepin County. And it is common for municipalities to contract with other cities or sheriffs for police coverage. Usually it's a smaller city buying service from a bigger entity, but no reason why a big city can't buy service that will be better than what it has, probably less costly, and with cops who don't disdain the citizens.

Anyone who watched that haunting video taken Memorial Day should be thrilled to see a new sheriff in town.

David Therkelsen, of Minneapolis, is a retired nonprofit executive. A shorter version of this article appeared previously as a letter to the editor.