True safety discards an oppressive police system

I do not often speak about my rape survival story. But since last summer, I've felt a growing need to speak out. I want you to understand why a sexual assault survivor favors dismantling the Minneapolis Police Department, and why I am so excited to vote "Yes for Minneapolis" in November.

It's time to amend our city's charter so we can continue the big, beautiful, challenging work of reimagining community safety for our city, beyond policing as we've known it.

When I was 18, I survived a random, violent rape. The perpetrator wore a mask and held a gun to my head. He broke into my home and threatened to kill me and everyone in the apartment if I didn't stay silent. It was the longest, most horrific night of my life.

When we did call the police the next morning, they aggressively questioned me without care or compassion. They were accusatory and terrifying. I remember looking at the guns in their holsters and thinking, "Why do I feel like I'm the one who committed a crime?"

But I grew up and grew through. I feel empowered to use my voice to speak the truth. I've learned to feel deep gratitude for the young person I was, who somehow found resilience and survived, even if she didn't heal all the wounds perfectly.

After George Floyd was murdered in May 2020, my neighborhood had many conversations about safety. I learned that some neighbors — mostly white, mostly men — feel more secure knowing that armed cops are a phone call away. In community conversations, they explained that they need police "because I have a daughter" … "because I have a wife" … "to defend my family."

What I understood was this: White men use the threat of sexual violence against "their" white women and girls to justify arming themselves with a racist police force. White women's fragility and vulnerability are used as shields constructed to cover the desire for these tools of violence. It's not a new story, and it's sickening to me, especially because of my own experience.

As a sexual assault survivor, I reject this role. I will not be used to justify a violent, oppressive police system. My pain — and the pain of other survivors — cannot be used as a tool to prop up a system that harms my Black and brown neighbors, friends and family, and that puts other people's loved ones at risk. I did not survive that horror to see my story appropriated by those with privilege to justify a system that perpetuates violence.

Rather than fear, I feel empowerment because I have felt what real safety is, and you have, too. It's knowing your neighbors' names, phone numbers and birthdays. It's taking care of each other's kids, having a job that gives you leave when you need it and showing up with soft drinks at the encampment. It's a school with a well-resourced staff and a community center with a great playground. It's access to health care. It's walking through the park after the sun goes down, because summer evenings in Minnesota are so, so beautiful.

Safety is not an angry, fear-filled officer, armed for a violent struggle, or a line of stone-faced cops in riot gear throwing flash bangs into a crowd of peaceful protesters, or National Guard vehicles on every street corner. Real safety is less the absence of that, and more the presence of systems of care and support. I am committed to sharing my story if it helps anyone move closer to that understanding.

Building real community safety asks us to play the long game. Join me in that beautiful, transformative work. We have a chance to make change through our ballots this November. I support Yes for Minneapolis because it lets us reimagine safety beyond the violent, racist past and present of MPD.

Cops didn't keep me safe as an 18-year-old facing rape at gunpoint. But my community has given me safety, hope and healing.

Sarina Partridge, of Minneapolis, is a TakeAction MN leader and a Yes 4 Minneapolis campaign volunteer.