Minneapolis cops quit amid George Floyd’s protest

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Seven Minneapolis cops have left their post and another seven are finalizing their resignation over lack of support from the department and city leaders.
• Over the decades, the department has faced a series of allegations of brutality and other discrimination against African Americans and other minorities
• Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday that the department is facing issues of credibility and needs to be demolished.

Seven Minneapolis cops have left their posts and another seven are processing their resignation — pointing out lack of support from the department and city leaders amid continuous protests over George Floyd’s death.

Mayor Jacob Frey’s had neglected the Third Precinct station during the protests which did not sit well with the officers, current and former officials told The Minneapolis Star Tribune.

After the officers left, demonstrators burned the building. They also insulted and threw bricks at the officers, which made some of them together with some protesters injured.

Both the Minnesota Department of Human Rights and the Federal Bureau of Investigation launched their own investigations whether the officers involved in Floyd’s brutal arrest are guilty of depriving the victim’s civil rights.

In decades, the department has faced allegations of brutality and other discrimination against African Americans and other minorities. And now, majority of City Council members are advocating to dismantle the department.

“[Officers] don’t feel appreciated… Everybody hates the police right now. I mean everybody,” Mylan Masson said, a retired Minneapolis officer and use-of-force expert.

In an email sent to supervisors earlier this month, Deputy Chief Henry Halvorson said that the absences without leave by some officers made them uncertain if they are still employed or not.

But the situation was downplayed by John Elder, Minneapolis Police spokesman. “There’s nothing that leads us to believe that at this point the numbers are so great that it’s going to be problematic. People seek to leave employment for a myriad reasons — the MPD is no exception,” Elder said.

Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar who represents part of Minneapolis told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday that the department is facing issues of credibility and needs to be demolished.

“You can’t really reform a department that is rotten to the root,” Omar said. 

“What you can do is rebuild. And so this is our opportunity, you know, as a city, to come together, have the conversation of what public safety looks like, who enforces the most dangerous crimes that place in our community. … What we are saying is, the current infrastructure that exists as policing in our city should not exist anymore.”

Elder has not replied yet to a request for comment about Omar’s statements.

Source: AOL.com