Shot In The Dark: Cops In Minneapolis

June 26, 2003

Cops In Minneapolis - This

Cops In Minneapolis - This story from the Strib highlights an issue that came up last week, in the story about the drunk Minneapolis cop that allegedly beat up the motorist. A group of community activists assailed Minneapolis Police chief Robert Olson during his mid-year performance review.

inneapolis Police Chief Robert Olson wasn't surprised that the use of force and officer accountability would come up during his midyear job review Wednesday morning with Mayor R.T. Rybak and other top city officials.

But an unexpected visit by a group of community activists and the 14-year-old boy whose mother filed a brutality lawsuit this week turned a generally mundane administrative process into a discussion on how Olson will improve community relations.

Spike Moss, who did most of the speaking for the group, rejected the mayor's request that they set up another time to talk about the case of Damani Bediako, who allegedly was beaten by an officer last month.

"We don't want to wait," Moss said. "We don't want this put on the back burner. We're on the front burner today."

Granted, Spike Moss is the Al Sharpton of the Twin Cities - a political grandstander. But there's something to this.

Minneapolis' police department seemed, in the mid-eighties, to take after Los Angeles. Darrell Gates' philosophy was always to have a relatively small force with a very strong "us against them" ethic. The stress of the overwork mixed with the attitude, the theory goes, to create a police department that was prone to excessive violence.

Minneapolis' police department has, in my memory, always had a similar reputation. And while I know most Minneapolis cops are as good as any, I also know that they've had some strange hiring practices; when I was working as a nightclub DJ, I can't tell you how many thumper bouncers I met who were waiting to get into Minnapolis' police training program. It always seemed strange to me that Minneapolis' police department seemed to have so many more problems than St. Paul's.