Since Memorial day, there have been 111 people shot in the city of Minneapolis. That may be only a single weekend’s total for their large neighbor to the southeast, Chicago, but the City of Lakes has less than a quarter the population and is well on its way to achieving Windy City-like levels of mayhem.
Minneapolis is becoming a shooting gallery. In one incident early Sunday morning, 1 person was killed and 11 wounded in a progressive mass shooting that wound its way through city’s uptown area. On Monday, three more shootings wounded nine more people. According to citypages.com, Minneapolis’s ShotSpotter system has recorded more than 1600 gunshots in the last month.
In a press conference yesterday, Minneapolis’s Zoolander-like Mayor Jacob Frey, described what the city’s police officers are encountering when they respond to 911 calls.
From citypages.com:
“There have been several instances in which law enforcement, and our police officers have responded to a very serious critical incident, in some cases involving loss of life, where they’ve been surrounded, pelted bottles, rocks, or even worse,” Frey said. “That is not a dynamic that will lead to success, that is not a dynamic that will lead to public safety. And it certainly does not serve the victims of shootings or any other form of violence.”
You don’t say. Given the ineffectiveness of the city’s police force in the current circumstances, Frey announced that he’s called for help from state and federal law enforcement agencies.
The mayor said the city will receive assistance from the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Department, Metro Transit Police, the State Patrol, the FBI, the Secret Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) to investigate the shootings.
As we’ve pointed out, defunding or otherwise neutering the effectiveness of local law enforcement inevitably has a disproportionately negative effect on…black people. But that didn’t stop the city’s far-left city council from voting to do just that. Unanimously.
The predictable impact of this on the city’s minorities has been unmistakable so far.
Joining Frey at his Monday press conference, Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo pointed out “many” of the victims in recent shootings are Black.
“The number of gunshot wound victims, specifically to our African Amercian community, in young men — their lives are not disposable,” Arradondo said.
He added: “This cannot become our normal, as a city. This is unacceptable, and as your chief, I cannot tolerate this here. People have to be held accountable when they come in and do harm to our communities.”
Blah, blah, blah. Meaningless platitudes by the man who heads a department full of hobbled, demoralized, reluctant officers who can’t possibly be effective in responding to — let alone preventing — crime in the toxic atmosphere that pervades the city. The Chief’s words carry zero weight and every Minneapolitan knows it.
Will calling in the Secret Service, the FBI and the ATF make a difference? Will they be patrolling the city’s streets in such a way as to deter more gunfire and bodies? Or will it take armed National Guard troops on every corner to make a noticeable difference? Is that a step Mayor Frey is willing to consider? Or will his preferred solution be to send in an army of social services workers to heal the city’s population?