Five cops who sued City of Minneapolis to get two million dollars. Ain’t good enough. And this bilge about MPD Chief Dolan instituting a unit to oversee diversity and race issues is just so much cosmetic crap.
The Free Speech Zone offers a space for contributions from readers, without editing by the TC Daily Planet. This is an open forum for articles that otherwise might not find a place for publication, including news articles, opinion columns, announcements and even a few press releases. Send your contributions to editor@tcdailyplanet.net
The police officers, all black, let themselves be bought off. Sure, two million split five ways is a lot of money and who, in this economic day and age, doesn’t want a lot of money? But is that what their lawsuit was about? Getting paid?
Supposedly it was about having been discriminated against. If they give a tinker’s damn about discrimination, why did they settle for a settlement? Why didn’t they push it all the way to court and do everything they could to oust Dolan, hold their union accountable and see to it that the Department of Justice — you know, that federal office that at least shows signs it’s willing to put its foot up the MPD’s ass — stepped in and thoroughly investigated the whole damn force from top to bottom on the basis of a long documented history of racism against officers and citizens (remember us, the people in urban Minneapolis who have to put up with being messed over by those our taxes salary to serve and protect just like suburban white folk can expect)?
Dolan can take his diversity/race initiative, fold it five ways — no pun intended — and securely lodge it in a southerly orifice. We have seen exactly what such p.c. pap amounts to: look at how little the Police Community Relations Council has accomplished in all these years except to give blowhard glory-hogs like Ron Edwards yet one more chance to shine as a “hero of the people.” Great. The five cops will never have to work another day in their lives if they don’t feel like it. And business will proceed as usual at one of the most despicable excuses for a police force this side of New York City. Imaginably, that’s what it will take — for the Minneapolis Police Department to start gunning people of color down in the street just like they do in NYC for something of consequence to be done about entrenched, institutionalized racism. If that will make a difference.
Dwight Hobbes
Minneapolis
Comment