Within the social hall of Recent Beginnings Baptist Ministries, situated on the southeast corner of 1st Avenue and forty third Street in South Minneapolis, Northsider Anita Urvita-Davis, who was born within the U.S., recalled how within the late Nineteen Nineties a Minneapolis police officer asked her for papers in Spanish.

“The police officer on the corner, waiting to show, looks at me out his open window and says, ‘Buenos tardes [Good afternoon].’ I checked out him and I said, ‘Buenos tardes,’” recalls Urvina-Davis. The officer then asked, in Spanish, if she spoke English. “Si,” she told the officers. “Then he said ‘Tiene papeles? Do you’ve papers?’ I used to be shocked and I said in English ‘What?’” 

Despite Urvita-Davis, who’s a member of the Unity Community Mediation Team, being hurt by how she was treated, she still thinks we’d like police. She believes they only should be more sensitive. She joined a committee of eight community members from the African immigrant, African American and Native American communities, all members of the UCMT, who met with the U.S. Department of Justice last Thursday morning to offer feedback on what a Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) consent decree should address. 

In the course of the U.S. Department of Justice’s two-year investigation into the MPD, they found the department engaged in discriminatory, often reckless practices against Blacks and Native Americans and people suffering a mental health crisis. 

On the meeting between the Unity Community Mediation Team and the DOJ, members asked that the MPD recruit more officers from the community—officers who they consider will see them with dignity. 

“Daily [Lake Street Somali Mall goers] feel discriminated against by the Minneapolis Police Department, especially in relation to Friday prayers,” says Farhil Khalif, executive director of Voice of East African Women. “They feel like they’ve been harassed or given a ticket on the spot. Loads of people consider they’re being targeted because they’re Black.” 

Mary LaGarde, executive director of the Minneapolis American Indian Center, echoed this sentiment. “We wish our law enforcement to reflect the community that they’re serving. We wish our Native people to be cops, those that can relate to our community members.”

Though some should want to abolish the police, and have the cash spent investing in resources to construct strong communities, Rachel Dionne Thunder said we still need the police in some cases. 

“I consider that we do need law enforcement, because there are situations that I don’t wish to see our community members put in without the correct training and resources and tools that police departments have access to,” says Dionne Thunder. “We want law enforcement to analyze our missing and murdered Indigenous women and relatives. We want those resources to return into our community, but we’d like them to are available in a way that’s healthy and helpful, not overbearing and restrictive and abusive.”

Pastor Ian D. Bethel agrees, but in addition admits it would be difficult for MPD to give attention to hiring more officers, which he believes will make Minneapolis secure. “Keep in mind that movie ‘Ghostbusters’? Who you gonna call? If someone breaks into your private home, who you gonna call? You’re gonna immediately dial 911. 

“We want the police,” said Bethel. “The numbers within the police department should not there [to keep us safe]. You tell a 10-year-old, ‘Go into policing as a profession.’ It’s [a] hard sell. We cannot quit on that.”

The meeting was reportedly amongst greater than a dozen that the DOJ held in Minneapolis last week. The DOJ was reportedly present on the Sabathani Community Center on June 26 and the North Regional Library on June 27, in addition to meeting with organizations working with the Native American and East African communities.

Nonetheless, many in the neighborhood didn’t know concerning the meetings, which were organized on short notice. “One thing we mentioned is the necessity to offer the community higher notice of outreach meetings. We’ll be working with them on this issue,” said Communities United Against Police Brutality Director Michelle Gross. 

A DOJ spokesperson stresses that they plan to have “additional opportunities for input in the approaching weeks on this ongoing process.” They invite community members who’re taken with attending future sessions or providing their feedback on the consent decree to email community.minneapolis[at]usdoj.gov or call 866-432-0268.

Nonetheless, Dionne believes cops won’t fix all of our problems. “There should be resources which can be invested in behavioral health. There should be task forces for trafficking, for missing and murdered Indigenous women. There should be resources for addiction and homelessness. There must be protection for our kids, investment in our future generations,” says Dionne Thunder. 

“We will’t expect [police to be] a fix-all. But we will expect them to have integrity, to have trust, to be healthy, and to be accountable for his or her actions.”