Readers Write: Angry local politics, policing, Jamal Mitchell’s death

Opinion editor’s note: Star Tribune Opinion publishes letters from readers online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

•••

As a former Hopkins City Council member, I am compelled to address the increasing divisiveness in our local politics (”Local politics more testy as rancor grows,” June 6). Despite being labeled as nonpartisan, these elections are anything but. Candidates often receive “resolutions of support” or similar endorsements that grant them access to a party’s information database, enabling them to strategically target likely voters. This undermines the spirit of nonpartisanship and distorts the electoral process.

Local government should focus on serving the community by ensuring public safety, promoting education and maintaining infrastructure. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case. We now see local councils and boards passing resolutions on international military actions or in support of specific cultural groups. If these resolutions are not passed, the backlash from the affected groups can result in lost votes, further politicizing local governance.

We must remember that local government exists to serve the community by ensuring public safety, promoting education and maintaining infrastructure. It is not a platform for grandstanding on national or international issues. To restore civility and effectiveness in our local politics, we need to refocus on these core responsibilities.

Alan Beck, Hopkins

•••

After reading Thursday’s article about rancor at local government levels and having been on the receiving end of both political and professional accusations while I served on a local city council, I must point out a possible solution to this troubling trend.

We need more and better local news reporting. In many small cities and towns, local media is gone. There are no local reporters who attend city council, school board and county board meetings. People get their news either in a stripped-down version on the local government website or in the echo chamber that is social media. There are no editors to take a stand on local issues.

And this past legislative session, local units of governments pressed to have a law change allowing them to only post their official notices on their websites, further damaging local media.

Instead, we need more local reporters who are trained journalists to give us the straight news and insight on the goings-on in our communities. Local papers and radio stations need strong editors who can guide reporters and who aren’t afraid to take a public stand on the editorial page.

It’s past time to simply admire the problem. It’s time to act. Minnesotans in our big cities, regional centers and small towns need to know what is happening with the governments and officials that serve them. The decisions they make (or lack thereof) have major impacts on the daily lives of the citizens they represent.

Danna Elling Schultz, Maplewood

Glaringly missing from Jim Schultz’s piece published June 4 is any mention of the Republican share in disrespect for law and order generally and their tolerance of physical attacks on police officers, specifically on Jan. 6, 2021 (”The disgrace of politicians’ war on police,” Opinion Exchange).

While saying it is “difficult” to draw a line between any specific attacks on police and what he calls a “climate of hostility,” Schultz cleverly plants the seed of suspicion on the left. It doesn’t take a clever person to see the direct line between inflammatory Republican rhetoric that initiated the attack on the Capitol and the police in 2021.

Many of us have re-examined our general outrage at the time of George Floyd’s murder and have a more nuanced view of police reform now. But many in the Republican so-called base, including high-level elected officials, have doubled down since Jan. 6. They’ve joined the chorus that calls the rioters patriots, and they’ve fallen in line with a presidential candidate who suggests he would pardon them.

There’s plenty of disgrace to go around. Everybody needs to look in the mirror!

Robert Borchert, Minneapolis

•••

Looking to the past does not bring anyone “back,” and my condolences to anyone who has lost a loved one to violence. But history can teach us all something, if we let it. My history lessons include a quote saying that ignoring or not remembering history means you’re condemned to repeat it.

If we as a society are going to move forward, we have to do some fairly simple things:

1. Insist that law enforcement act as protectors of our civil society.

2. Teach our children to obey when law enforcement gives us a directive.

Both of these simple statements can change how we live and love in the Twin Cities. Cops have to do better — and I know that the vast majority of them do just that! But all of them need to adhere to that rule.

By the same token, parents have to step up! I am weary of listening to a parent lament the loss of their kid who refused to listen to the direction of a cop in a traffic stop. Teach them to turn off the car. Put their hands on the wheel. Listen to the next directive. And if they have already gotten themselves in trouble with the law (warrants and past history), be someone different than the person who previously had a problem with law enforcement.

Our kids need guidance — and it’s better coming from Mom or Dad, not the police. If we do a better job as parents, we might have fewer news items on the 10:00 news that another person was shot by law enforcement because they didn’t listen.

Let’s all do better.

Jim Stromberg, Edina

I join countless thousands of Minneapolis residents in grief and anger over the killing of officer Jamal Mitchell, a proven young hero who dedicated his life to serving our city. A retired police officer and recent letter writer (”I fear we’ll forget him. Let’s not,” Readers Write, June 6) feels the loss more than many; he lost a brother in blue. His survivor’s guilt and anger at the loss are palpable. Mitchell must not be forgotten.

Similar thoughts are covered in a second Thursday letter.

Anger and grief are the right feelings now. But why guys who don’t live in Minneapolis feel so angry at the City Council elected by the people of Minneapolis escapes me. Do they think:

• Policies by the Minneapolis City Council caused to the death of two police officers and an EMT in Burnsville in February?

• Talk of defunding the police caused Officer Jerry Haaf to be gunned down just blocks from my house in 1992?

• The City Council is to blame for the shooting deaths of officer Melissa Jayne Schmidt (2002), Sgt. David Ward Mack (1986) or patrolman Richard Paul Miller Sr. (1981), other Minneapolis police officers who have died by gunfire since 1980?

The retired officer letter writer is also angry about bee lawns, bike paths and food co-ops. I wish he and the other critics of Minneapolis could meet some of the young African American, Asian, Indigenous, Latino and European American people in north Minneapolis who care deeply about issues like crime, incarceration rates, underemployment, environmental degradation and draining the food swamp in which they live.

Critics from the suburbs could actually help reduce crime and improve lives if they bothered to come into the city. Spending a few hours volunteering might open their eyes to what’s really going on. And when the anger dies down, altruism can help manage the grief.

Philip P. Deering, Minneapolis