Minneapolis mayor is booed out of a rally for rejecting calls to defund the police
Minneapolis Mayor Gets Booed & Kicked Out Of Protest For Not Defunding The Police Department
Protesters from Minneapolis drove Mayor Jacob Frey out of a rally Saturday, chanting “Shame! Shame!” after he rejected calls to defund the police.
It was a striking moment that illustrated just how much the national conversation has changed in the nearly two weeks of protests over the death of George Floyd, who was killed on May 25 by a Minneapolis officer who knelt on his neck. What was once a niche, radical argument — defund the police — has become a rallying call for protesters who want drastic changes that will dismantle a system they see as racist and ineffective.
While most Americans don’t support cutting police budgets (according to a Yahoo/YouGov poll conducted during the early days of the protests), officials are now being forced to at least contend with these arguments. That includes Frey, who had campaigned on a platform of police reform before he was elected in 2017. He was confronted with the question during a rally he visited on Saturday: When a woman on stage gave him a microphone to answer whether or not he’d defund the Minneapolis Police Department, he answered, “I do not support the full abolition of the police.” Read More
