Two weeks after the death of George Floyd during his arrest in Minneapolis, a majority of the members of the municipal council voted, Sunday, June 7, in favor of a dismantling of the local police department.

"We are committed to dismantling the police force as we know it in the city of Minneapolis and to rebuilding with our people a new model of public safety, which really ensures the safety of our people," said Lisa Bender, President of the municipal council, on CNN.

She said she intended to transfer funds allocated from the police budget to population-based projects. The city council also intends to examine how to replace the existing police, she added. "The idea of ​​not having a police force is certainly not a short-term project," she said.

Opposition of the mayor

According to council member Alondra Cano, the council concluded that the city police were "not reformable and that we were going to end the current policing system".

But the city mayor Jacob Frey had made known before the council's vote that he was not in favor of this dismantling, saying that he preferred a "major structural reform for the overhaul of this structurally racist system". As a result, the city council's promise may take time to materialize.

The Democrats called on Sunday for a major transformation of the police, accused of discrimination, injustice and brutality against black Americans.

Law before Congress

Several elected Democrats want to attack what they believe is the product of racism that has plagued the history of the United States since slavery, by presenting a law to reform the police on the whole Monday from the country.

Certain measures have already been imposed at a local level since the beginning of this protest movement. The chief of police of Seattle thus prohibited the use of tear gas for thirty days. Minneapolis police have announced that they will now ban the dangerous "choke" technique.

The death of George Floyd is only the latest in a long series in recent years of the deaths of mostly unarmed black men in interaction with white police.

White policeman Derek Chauvin, who kept his knee for almost nine minutes on the neck of George Floyd, first tackled, was charged with manslaughter but this chief was reclassified on June 4 as murder, punishable forty years in prison. He is scheduled to appear in court for the first time on Monday.

The three police officers who accompanied him, who had not been prosecuted immediately, were finally charged with complicity, and placed in detention.

With AFP and Reuters

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