Waiting

The weather has been very hot and humid the past few days; we are ready for a break from the heat. There were several protests over the weekend.  The Minneapolis City Council promising to eliminate the Minneapolis Police Department probably is going to do more damage to the city’s tax base than the rioting and looting did. It was surreal to see them saying this with violent protests still going on all over the country, but for what’s going on here at this point, it is getting near the end of the psychological opportunity to shove through such a radical change. It bears repeating that relations between the MPD and various city factions have long been strained and hostile.  Also, the characters of the different neighborhoods can vary quite widely, and having “community policing” that presumably would include more neighborhood-level input and oversight seems appealing to many.  I wouldn’t be surprised, though, if some neighborhoods have begun to look into the feasibility of legally separating themselves from the city.

The 3rd Precinct building that was abandoned, looted, and burned had been designed and built as an imposing fortress, overlooking a commercial area that is more on the scale of a village crossroads.  That exaggerates the difference in physical scale, but not the emotional impressions. I always felt unsettled when we drove past it. It seemed to belong to an occupying force. The rioters, most of them from outside the neighborhood, certainly treated it that way. Not many people are going to miss it.