The Joint Community Police Partnership started in 2005 in Brooklyn Center and Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. Their Multicultural Advisory Committee (MAC) facilitates monthly discussions between residents and police officials.
But, if one of those city names sounds familiar, that’s because it is – 20-year-old Daunte Wright was just killed by a Brooklyn Center police officer in April 2021.
The thing is: the MAC actually does meet monthly. But, if you look at the demographics of Brooklyn Park, 28% of residents are Black. Black people are 3x more likely to be shot by police.
But not a single Black American has a seat at the MAC table.
After Daunte Wright was “accidentally” killed at a traffic stop for having air fresheners hanging from his mirror, Black people of Brooklyn Center are again calling for change. They want the traffic stops to end and more transparency about the demographics of their city’s police killings – not more police training or “discussions.”
“We demand to be respected and valued as human beings by the officers and the system," said one Minnesota resident. But, what if the system doesn’t want to respect us?
Brooklyn Center is supposed to be a model for police reform, but the killing of Daunte Wright shows us the pitfalls of reformism. We need more. We need abolition of this anti-Black system and the entire prison industrial complex!