Minneapolis Police Department

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The Minneapolis Police Department also known as MPD is the police department for the City of Minneapolis, in the U.S. state of Minnesota. The city has 5 precincts,^[1] 800 sworn officers, and 300 civilian employees.^[2]

[edit] Units

The Minneapolis Police Department is organized by various units.

• Business Technology

• Community Crime Prevention / Safety For Everyone (CCP/SAFE)

• Internal Affairs

• Investigations

• Mounted Patrol

The Minneapolis Mounted Patrol Unit has 8 full-time riders of the 30 fully-trained MPD sworn officers in the unit. It is the largest mounted patrol in the five-state Upper Midwest and operates on donations. Minneapolis owns 11 horses that commute from a rented barn in Delano, Minnesota. Part of the older waterworks plant in Columbia Heights will be converted into a new stable.^[3][4]

• Training

[edit] Special Operations Division

• Bomb-Arson Unit

• Canine

The Minneapolis Police Canine Unit has 17 canine teams and the training facility is in Northeast, Minneapolis.^[5]

• Homeland Security

• Police Activities League (PAL)

• Special Events/Reserve

• Strategic Operations Unit

• Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT)

• Traffic Enforcement and Accident Investigation

• Traffic Control

• Minneapolis Police Reserve

The Minneapolis Police Reserve is a 60 non-sworn officer unit in charge of emergency preparedness, general public safety, and provides major support for traffic and crowd control. Officers are non-sworn and wear a light blue uniform with black slacks. Conceived after World War II as the civil defense force in anticipation of a nuclear attack during the Cold War, the reserve's role diminished after the Soviet-era. The unit's responsibility however was reaffirmed after the attacks of September 11, 2001 and was reassigned under the Minneapolis Police Department's Emergency Preparedness Coordinator, tasked with domestic defense in situations of civil unrest and disasters.^[6] Though officers are not on regular active patrols, they are on-call 24 hours and respond to rioting, protests, officer shootings, large crime scenes, fires and explosions, and natural disasters, as well as events requiring a security presence such as dignitaries and concerts. They also provide officers to traffic control.^[6]

[edit] Other agencies

Five other other police forces operate in Minneapolis with the Minneapolis Police Department being the largest.

• The University of Minnesota operates the UMPD.^[7]
• The Minneapolis Park Police Department had 22 sworn patrol officers and 21 park patrol agents as of 2008 who are responsible for law enforcement in city parks.^[8]
• The Metro Transit Police Department (officially Metropolitan Transit Police) patrols bus routes and light rail and as of 2008 had 60 full-time and 60 part-time officers.^[9]
• The Metropolitan Airports Commission has a police force.^[10]
• The Hennepin County Sheriff's Office with 800 licensed and civilian members is headquartered in Minneapolis.^[11]

[edit] Chief of Police

49 different men have served as Minneapolis police chief.^[2]

[edit] History

Minneapolis incorporated as a city in 1867 and Mayor Dorilus Morrison appointed H. H. Brackett as the first police chief serving a population of about 5,000 people.^[2] By 1889, the city grew to 200,000 people with 200 police officers on a budget of $10,972. Patrols were done on foot and by horseback with headquarters at city hall. By 1909, the department added motorcycles, fingerprinting, and utilized telephones. The Great Depression and the 1930s followed similarly to other growing U.S. cities as the police department quelled labor disputes and fought gangsters during Prohibition. But with American prosperity, Minneapolis reached its peak population of over 571,000 in 1950 and MPD had nearly 600 sworn officers. The total population of Minneapolis also identified in the 1950 census as 98% white.

The 1960s posed new challenges to the department from increased drug use, counterculture, and societal unrest. Rioting in Minneapolis followed similarly to inequality riots across many major U.S. cities during that era in predominantly African-American communities. Most notably, the Plymouth Avenue Riots in the Near North neighborhood resulted mostly from external forces and effectively emptied the area of Jewish and German businesses. The Police Department's poor engagement with the riots resulted in the Community Relations Division and the Model Cities Precinct in 1970.^[12] The latter decades saw the community-orientated policing evolve into the full-time Community Crime Prevention/SAFE Unit. From this tumultuous era, the construction of the freeway system and subsequent white flight emptied Minneapolis' population to a low of 350,000 in 1990. However the demand for policing continued to rise to over 700 officers in that decade as drug use and gang activity continued to accelerate.^[13]

By 1995, Minneapolis gained the term "murderapolis," coined by gun shop owner Mark Koscielski, whose T-shirts that featured the name were quoted in a New York Times article.^[14] Murders had peaked that year and the department sent three officers to New York City to study the "broken windows" crime-prevention program implemented by then Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Police Chief William Bratton.^[15] The officers returned to implement a new policing strategy, the Computer Optimized DEployment - Focus On Results (CODEFOR). A computer-based system, the strategy involves every unit of the MPD from patrol to special units to identify and concentrate policing on hotspots of crime. As technology has improved, the department continued to collect and increase reliance on statistical and data-based information.^[16]

The 21st century carried the challenges of the past. As crime disproportionately often impacted communities of colors, MPD's community relations continued to diminish with African American, blacks, and immigrants into the new century.^[13] In 2001, the tactic of racial profiling came to issue as the State Legislature attempted to mandate data collection of a person's race in traffic stops to reveal profiling trends. Though the measure was defeated, departments were offered incentives to volunteer for a pilot project to collect the data.^[17] MPD released its report in 2003 indicating it was more likely to stop a non-white person and the city under the leadership of mayor R.T. Rybak convened an audit of the department to determine why and formulate steps to address the issue.^[18]

On the outset of the new decade, MPD external community relations had overall improved. The Community Crime Prevention/Safety for Everyone (CCP/SAFE) specialists continue to effectively organize block clubs and communicate crime information for preventative action by residents.^[19] The Neighborhood Revitalization Program (NRP) which began in 1960 has just begun to realize its infrastructure and community improvements, as neighborhoods once severely impacted by crime and deterioration even in the 1990s had turned around (see Whittier neighborhood.^[20] In 2007, Precincts began implementing official neighborhood policing plans based on data collected since CODEFOR's introduction.^[21]

However internal relations was heavily affected under police chief William McManus who was appointed in 2003 after Rybak ousted former chief Robert Olson. McManus dealt with and instigated internal promotions and politics within the department in order to achieve racial equality in officer ranks. Alongwith, his improvement of Internal Affairs and greater control over policing led to generate larger respect for the chief and department from communities of color and even gang members.^[22] He countered with Rybak in the short period as police chief over promotions and controversy surrounding the fallout of the 2003 Duy Ngo incident, in which Ngo, an undercover officer was shot many times by another officer.^[13] In early 2006, McManus sought the police chief position in San Antonio, Texas and Assistant Chief Tim Dolan seceded him.^[23]

McManus had suceeded in appointing several black officers to high positions.^[23] However this did not essentially combat the institutionalized racism of former chief Robert Olson.^[24] In December 2007, five high ranking black police officers filed a lawsuit against the department alleging a long history of systemic racial discrimination and a hostile working environment toward black officers.^[25]

Patrol car in downtown Minneapolis

An officer in downtown Minneapolis

A horse at a police fest in Minneapolis

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

Minnesota Portal

• Minneapolis Police Department