MINNEAPOLIS —
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey was the face of the town via a few of its darkest days — the demise of George Floyd below an officer’s knee final yr and rioting that marred the following protests, together with the burning of a police precinct after Frey ordered officers to desert it.
Frey, a Democrat, is now in a troublesome battle to maintain his job as the town tries to rebuild since Floyd’s demise in Might 2020 sparked probably the most damaging unrest within the U.S. for the reason that Rodney King riots. Tuesday’s election will possible activate how voters view Frey’s efforts to discover a center street in a metropolis sharply divided by questions on racism, policing and crime.
Frey has positioned himself as a defender of police and the town’s common Black chief — and in opposition to probably the most liberal and vocal progressives searching for a symbolic victory in Floyd’s metropolis.
“There’s not a mayor within the nation that’s content material with the tempo of change, and rely me in on that vote,” Frey, 40, stated in an interview. “However we now have handed a litany of reforms and adjustments, greater than any mayor within the historical past of this metropolis.”
In the course of the worst of the unrest following the demise of Floyd, a Black man, below white Officer Derek Chauvin’s knee, conservatives accused Frey of failing to stem the riots or crack down on hovering crime and gun violence.
However he has additionally been pilloried by many on the left for not doing sufficient to overtake Minneapolis police. Most of his severe challengers in a 17-candidate area are extra liberal than Frey in a metropolis that final elected a Republican mayor 64 years in the past. Some have made a mantra of the slogan “Do not Rank Frey” — a plea for voters to depart him off their poll within the metropolis’s ranked-choice voting system, thus rising the probabilities another person will win.
Frey’s destiny might be tied to a poll query that asks voters whether or not they need to substitute the police division with a brand new Division of Public Security. The poll query would drop a requirement that the town have a police division and a minimal variety of officers. Opponents have stated that might imply too few officers; supporters have dismissed that as fear-mongering.
The mayor opposes the poll query. He notes it would not embrace a transparent plan for no matter would substitute it, and that it will shift sole oversight of police from the mayor’s workplace to a system that provides the 13-member Metropolis Council extra enter.
Two high challengers, Sheila Nezhad and Kate Knuth, each assist changing the present division. Nezhad was a frontrunner of the marketing campaign behind the poll query. Knuth is a former state consultant and environmental justice activist.
Progressive teams have united across the two ladies and the “Do not Rank Frey” technique, together with U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, who represents the Minneapolis space in Congress. In an look with each candidates in mid-October, Omar blasted “4 years of failed management” within the metropolis, and Nezhad and Knuth sounded related notes.
“Our path ahead doesn’t require us to decide on amongst security, justice and police accountability,” Knuth stated.
Frey, a lawyer by coaching and a Virginia transplant, first gained a Metropolis Council seat in 2013. He ascended to the mayor’s workplace in 2017 by ousting incumbent Betsy Hodges in a race additionally roiled by police accountability points, together with the 2015 taking pictures of Jamar Clark, a Black man, in a wrestle with white officers and the 2017 taking pictures of Justine Ruszczyk Damond, a white lady, by a Black officer.
The divisions within the marketing campaign within the wake of Floyd’s demise do not break down cleanly alongside racial traces. Frey stated his strongest assist comes from the Black and Somali communities, which have been hit exhausting by crime and the place assist for defunding police will not be common. He stated there is a “large disjoint” between what he is listening to from these communities in comparison with what white progressive activists are saying.
Frey stated he has made substantial progress in overhauling policing. As examples, the mayor stated police compliance with guidelines on utilizing physique cameras was simply 55% when he took workplace. Penalties that he and Medaria Arradondo, the town’s first Black police chief, imposed after Floyd’s demise introduced it to 95%. The division banned “warrior-style” coaching. They overhauled use-of-force guidelines together with a ban on choke holds. They banned pretext stops for low-level offenses resembling air fresheners hanging from mirrors and expired license plate tabs.
Frey stated Minnesota legislation requires adjustments to do extra to carry dangerous cops accountable. He stated the division has terminated or disciplined extra officers in 2020 and 2021 than the earlier 4 years mixed: closing disciplinary selections in 73 circumstances final yr and this yr, in comparison with 63 between 2015 and 2019. However Frey stated it is exhausting to make these selections stick.
“Proper now when Chief Arradondo or I fireplace or self-discipline an officer, 55% of the time that call is overturned by obligatory arbitration, which is required below state legislation,” he stated. “Fifty p.c of the time they’re returned they usually return to violate belief with the neighborhood.”
Frey stated he needs to proceed engaged on public security and police accountability in a second time period, and on a “sturdy and inclusive restoration” from each the pandemic and final yr’s destruction. He’d additionally wish to revisit reasonably priced housing, a problem the place he had some early successes.
“For all these points, public security, police accountability, reasonably priced housing, financial inclusion and restoration, there are not any magic wand fixes,” he stated. “There are not any hashtags that result in utopia. You gotta do the work.”
Steve Cramer, president and CEO of the Minneapolis Downtown Council and a former Metropolis Council member, stated Frey has staked out a robust place of eager to work with Arradondo to reform the police division as it’s.
“I feel that stance is common with an enormous chunk of voters within the metropolis, together with many within the African American neighborhood, however there’s additionally a cohort of younger individuals who do not see it that manner,” Cramer stated.
