In a major blow to the far-left “defund the police” agenda, the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, rejected in a landslide a ballot measure that would have abolished the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD), as reported by the Daily Caller.
By a 13-point margin, voters in Minneapolis voted against Ballot Question 2, which would have replaced the MPD with a “Department of Public Safety” that would see fewer armed officers respond to 911 calls, in favor of “experts” on mental health and substance abuse. The current results have 56 percent of voters who voted “No,” while 43 percent voted “Yes.”
“I like the police,” said Minneapolis voter Wynn Weaver, who said he only voted on the policing question while leaving the rest of his ballot blank. “We need the police.” Another resident, Askari Lyons, said that defunding the police in the midst of the spike in violent crime would be “unwise.”
In the election campaign, the controversial measure was endorsed by far-left Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D-Minn.).
“The election next week in Minneapolis is no less than a fight of hope vs. fear, of maintaining a broken status quo that killed George Floyd or taking the path of reform,” Omar said in October. “Let’s remember what got us here: the Minneapolis Police Department killed a man, George Floyd, in broad daylight.”
But multiple other prominent officials in the state, including Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Governor Tim Walz (D-Minn.), and Mayor Jacob Frey (D-Minn.), all opposed the measure.
The ballot measure was the result of over a year of riots after the death of George Floyd, a black man who died of an accidental fentanyl overdose while in police custody in Minneapolis, in May of 2020. The White officer who arrested him, Derek Chauvin, was blamed for his death and ultimately found guilty earlier this year after a highly-politicized trial.
Following Floyd’s death, violent race riots broke out across the country and lasted for months, with the far-left domestic terrorist organizations Black Lives Matter and Antifa, which called for defunding all police departments, burning hundreds of businesses as well as some police department buildings and vehicles, causing over $2 billion in damages, and killing over two dozen civilians in the streets.