BY ED FELIEN
Precinct caucuses are coming up Tuesday night, April 4. On that night, the DFL starts all over again.
The goddess Aphrodite (Venus, in the Roman pantheon) was extravagant in her affections, but every night she would return to her father, Poseiden, the god of the sea, and he would wash her clean, and she would have no memory of last night’s fling, and when the new night began her adventures started all over again.
The DFL is a little like that—at the grass roots.
In less than two months, new delegates will be elected at the precinct caucuses. They will become the new Minneapolis DFL. A large number of delegates will be elected to endorse a candidate for the City Council seat for Wards 8 and 11 on Saturday, April 29, and for Ward 12 on Saturday, May 6. A smaller and very important group of delegates will be elected at the precinct caucuses to represent their neighborhood at the City DFL Endorsing Convention, June 24. They will endorse candidates for The Board of Estimate and Taxation, The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board and mayor.
Keith Ellison is running to be head of the Democratic National Committee at the end of February. If he gets elected, he’s said he will resign his seat in Congress. The governor would declare a special election to fill the seat. Only delegates elected last year to the DFL 5th District Convention would be eligible to vote for that endorsement.
It looked for a while that the 8th Ward Convention would be exciting. A number of people started running for the seat, but at press time there was only one candidate registered to seek the DFL endorsement: Andrea Jenkins.
We asked all the candidates for City Council and mayor:
“What would you do to stop the Minneapolis Police Department from killing young black men? Would you support an investigation into possible police misconduct in the deaths of Jamar Clark and Terrance Franklin?”
Andrea Jenkins replied: “As City Council member I would insist on more training related to cultural competency, conflict de-escalation and community policing. One aspect is that police say they are “following protocol”; we must change the protocol that leads to deadly interactions. When police brutality and fatalities happen we must hold them accountable and should do so in the cases of Jamar Clark and Terrance Franklin. We must demilitarize our police force. I want to work with community and police executives to find solutions to this vexing problem. But the bottom line is: The killing of unarmed black people must end.”
We asked candidates for DFL endorsement in the 11th Ward the same question:
Jeremy Schroeder: “First, ban the ineffective grand jury process, under which the officers involved in the Jamar Clark and Terrance Franklin shootings were tried. Instead, we should hold accused officers to the same standard as other community members. Grand juries add unnecessary procedure, and most countries that have used them have since abandoned them. Second, I intend to promote community policing policies while addressing larger issues that contribute to crime, including poverty, education inequity and public health inequity. Diversity in hiring needs to be a priority, with an emphasis on hiring officers who live in the city.”
Erica Mauter: “I advocate for restoration of an empowered civilian review process. I demand immediate and thorough investigations into incidents such as those involving the deaths of Jamar Clark and Terrance Franklin. I want MPD to carry its own liability insurance so that Minneapolis taxpayers aren’t paying for settlements associated with officer misconduct (totaling $6.6 million from 2012 to September 2015, per a 6/1/16 Star Tribune article). I also support and would fund work that promotes a culture in which officers are community- and service-oriented, and are connected to the communities in which they’re working.”
John Quincy did not respond to the question.
We asked candidates in the 12th Ward:
William Jaeger: “Recognizing that being a COP in any community is a hard job, is a must. Recognizing that unnecessary deaths are just that—UNNECESSARY, is also a must. I would support any investigation surrounding government misconduct, especially with an issue as important as HUMAN RIGHTS.”
Andrew Johnson: “I co-authored a budget amendment to fast-track implicit bias and procedural justice training for all police officers; have been a vocal advocate for body cameras to increase accountability (now fully rolled out); pushed for improvements to officer hiring to more heavily favor skills like conflict resolution; and called for an independent federal investigation after Jamar Clark was killed. We rely on police as one of the ways to address crime, and not only must we hold them to the highest standards, we also owe them better training and coaching, more opportunities to build community relations, and time to de-escalate situations.”
We asked candidates for DFL endorsement for mayor the same question. Only Aswar Rahman, the former youth policy assistant to Mayor Rybak and feature-length filmmaker, answered:
“More black officers in the MPD. That will be my mayoral duty. More African Americans, more Latinos, and more women have to be encouraged to join the police force if we’re ever going to turn back the tide on the killing of young black men in our city. My administration will hold targeted weekly recruitment drives—179 events over four years—all with the sole purpose of getting black and Latino men and women within our city to pursue a career in law enforcement. As for police misconduct investigations—a thorough one for every civilian death, period.”
