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I see three competing views of police in Minneapolis. One is abolitionist: more policing is more violence/incarceration. One is the racist rightwing view of policing as unquestionably good. But there's another that "don't handcuff our chief" neatly unites with the right ...
In 2019 Chief Rondo said he wants >1300 officers by 2025 ( https://www.startribune.com/in-minneapolis-911-nonresponses-underscore-needs-for-more-cops-advocates-say/513295582/). That's 550+ more than MPD has today, ~30% budget increase. He wanted 1000 in 2020. It underscores the weirdness of the "handcuff" line - doesn't Frey's 750-officer budget "handcuff the chief"?
We heard that talking point this week from residents saying that police can be reformed, if Rondo is allowed to "do his job." If there's more training. If police expand community programs. One warned that "who will want to be a cop, if the work is all violent crime?"
So this is the third view, being made largely by liberas: an argument for bigger, safer policing. This seems to fit Rondo's vision: that policing only gets better if it gets MUCH bigger. "Don't handcuff the chief" joins this view neatly with the rightwing view.
Frey's camp clearly distributed the "handcuff" talking point this week. Liberals got to say Rondo is handcuffed by a lack of resources. Thin-blue-line racists got to repeat a line that is almost identical to Bob Kroll's Trump rally line: "handcuffing and oppression of police".
This messaging not only props up and invokes rightwing calls for state violence ("you can take the hand away, ok?"), but it ignores the historical ratchet of police funding. Now we have 750 officers and reform has failed. What do we do when we have 1300 and reform has failed?
