The Minneapolis City Council unanimously approved $6.4 million in funding to hire dozens of police officers despite some council members and advocates in the city calling to defund the police department.
The move comes after the city’s police department reported having only 638 officers available, which they said is about 200 fewer than usual. Many officers quit the department or have yet to return from extended leaves since the unrest and rioting in the city last summer, after the death of George Floyd while he was in police custody.
The city now anticipates that it will have 674 officers by the end of the year, with another 28 set to go through the hiring process.
Three of the city’s council members have called for the police department to be replaced with a department of public safety, hoping to combine traditional law enforcement approaches while bringing in mental health professionals to respond to certain types of calls. The city council also voted in December to strip the police department budget of $8 million.
Minneapolis has experienced a spike in violent crime over the last year, causing many residents to insist the city hire more police officers instead of working to dismantle the department.
In a bid to convince council members to approve to hire more officers, Mayor Jacob Frey and Police Chief Medaria Arradondo vowed to roll out an updated application process that would ask potential applicants whether they have degrees in criminology, social work, psychology, or counseling. The updated application would also ask whether prospects ever volunteered or participated in programs such as the Police Activities League.
Deputy Police Chief Amelia Huffman expressed hope the changes “will help us to really feel confident that we are recruiting the kinds of candidates we want right from the beginning.”
