BY ED FELIEN
I confess to a mild case of transference. My best friend, until his death last year, was Tony Bouza. He was Chief of Police for Minneapolis from 1980 to 1988. He was tough on cops and would not tolerate racist and inappropriate behavior from any of his officers. Keeping racist, redneck officers in line was not always easy. But Tony loved it.
I see the same zeal for an anti-racist and a “Protect and Serve” ethic in your administration of the MPD. It is a welcome change from business as usual.
I was distressed to read that you told the New York Post, “Here it’s very, very ideological and a lot of times it’s like reality and facts can’t get through the filter. It’s a very detached, bourgeois liberal mentality… It’s bizarre.”
Some of the City Council Members objected to your categorization. They seemed to feel you were painting them as far-left.
I, also, disagree with your categorization, but I think you were painting them as far-right and conservative by calling them bourgeois liberals.
A working majority on the Minneapolis City Council is aligned with Democratic Socialists of America. This is not a bourgeois liberal organization. This is a radical organization. It is radical in the Minnesota sense of Governor Floyd B. Olson, who said at the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Association Convention in 1934, “I am what I want to be. I am a radical. I am not a liberal. I believe we need a definite change in the system.”
Governor Floyd B Olson, “I am what I want to be. I am a
radical. I am not a liberal.”
That’s the split that most people see.
The mayor is a bourgeois liberal—charming, sweet, eloquent and gorgeous, a tireless defender of the business-interests in Minneapolis—and the City Council DSA members are radicals—idealistic young people fumbling their way to their vision of a better world.
There’s no reason why liberals and radicals can’t work together. Bernie and Biden got along. Bernie supported Biden in the 2020 election, and Biden supported Bernie’s ambitious legislative program in Congress. They had a solid working relationship.
A big fight between the Mayor and the City Council is on what’s to be done with 38th and Chicago. The Mayor wants a dignified memorial and a return to normal traffic patterns. The radicals on the City Council want a pedestrian mall two blocks long and two blocks wide to commemorate the murder of George Floyd. They feel we’re not doing enough to eliminate racism in the MPD, and we need a big permanent reminder of the work that still needs to be done.
That’s where you could help. If you could demonstrate that you are actively working to eliminate racism in the MPD, then the City Council might accept that as the new normal and scale back their monumental resistance to normalizing traffic on Chicago Avenue and 38th Street.
As I’m sure you know, the City recently paid out more than a million dollars for the Wrongful Death of Terrance Franklin by officers in the MPD. A jury believed the evidence that proved Officers Durand and Lucas Peterson murdered Terrance Franklin in cold blood. The officers lied in their report of the incident. You need to set that record straight, correct that police report and, since there is no statutory limit on capital crimes, report that murder in a criminal complaint to the County Attorney.
You can prove to a skeptical City Council that you’re very serious about eliminating racism in the MPD by acting to correct the racist cover-ups of past administrations.
You are the arm of justice for our city. You can help end the struggle over the proper symbolism to commemorate the murder of George Floyd by showing us that real actions are more significant than symbols. Symbols are thoughts and prayers, necessary as a prelude to action. But without action the prayers go unanswered. You have the power to make our prayers come true.
You could be our hero.
And, then, we would love you forever.
