*Quite recently, some activists from the Black community let the Minneapolis Police Department know that they felt disrespected by their actions and that they spoke for the whole community. This statement was made because police officers in this precinct had decorated their Christmas tree with some racially offensive items.
Members of the community had then reacted by placing their own Christmas tree outside the entrance of the precinct on Friday 7th December. This is when the co-founder of Racial Justice Network – Nekima Levy- Armstrong made a statement saying, “We are out here to say that as a community, we do not tolerate racism.”
But what was so racist about the decorations that had been used by the police officers? Well, instead of going with the traditional Christmas decorations like reindeers and candy canes, the precinct thought it was fine to use a cup from Popeye’s Louisiana Kitchen (the fried chicken restaurant), a can of the malt liquor called Steel Reserve and even Newport’s cigarette packets.
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Shortly after the news made it on social media, the police officers had been identified and Jacob Frey – the Mayor of Minneapolis called for them to be terminated immediately. Instead of doing so, the commander of the police precinct- Medaria Arradondo (who is also Black) had gone and demoted those that were involved.
This means that the accused officers are still assigned to serve the predominantly African American community in Minneapolis and are also collecting paychecks from their taxes. What’s more? Both the police officers involved in the incident – Brandy Steberg and Mark Bohnsack have been part of atleast 3 fatal shootings that did not have any indictments alongside so many more complaints against them.
Since 2013, Bohnsack had some 12 complaints and Steberg has 2 complains that have gone unpunished. Steberg was also a defendant in 3 cases in the federal court which had been filed for the reason of the use of excessive force in the line of duty. None of the above mentioned discrepancies had resulted in any forms of disciplinary actions as yet.
That said, the activists in the community want more than just simple tough talk. They have now gone and demanded for both these officers to be thrown off the force. They didn’t just stop there. They also want the force to be trained for racial bias!
Serves them right.
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