Nearly four years after George Floyd suffocated to death while being pinned face down to the pavement by a police officer, Minnesota Democrats are fast-tracking legislation that would undo a less-than-year-old ban prohibiting school-based cops from using that same type of restraint on students.
As early as Monday, the state’s House of Representatives is slated to consider a proposal that presents a drastic departure from provisions approved by Democratic Gov. Tim Walz — rules that explicitly barred school resource officers from using face-down “prone restraint.”
The ban was part of a broader police reform movement that followed Floyd’s murder. The fatal physical hold led to the largest civil rights protest in U.S. history, a national reckoning on racism, policy reforms that sought to address police brutality and, in Minneapolis and dozens of districts nationwide, the removal of sworn officers from school campuses. In Minnesota, new state rules barred police officers from using chokeholds on people and prone restraints were banned in the state’s prisons.
Now, as the state’s Democrats make a 180-degree turn on the campus reform, education equity advocates have accused state leaders of falling to the political pressure of law enforcement groups ahead of a November election where party lawmakers seek to maintain their narrow majority in the state House. The proposal cleared the House Ways and Means committee earlier this week.
Cedrick Frazier is in on it, too. For some reason he rates a picture while Bonnie Westlin doesn’t. Presumably because of the comparisons the article/general press is making with these laws/Floyd and that Frazier is black. Saying anything about him being black in the article would be crass, but they’ll just drop a picture and not have to write anything. “Ooooh look, he must be a hypocrite!” I mean he kinda sorta is maybe, but not because he’s black but because the article says he was a champion of police reform after Floyd’s murder and now is walking back a reform.
The money is supposed to go to training. Seems reasonable enough. They have a “Captain of Investigations Tanya Harmoning” going on in there about how the cops only know how to do things one way. Seems like it could be good if they learned a different way. There is a little more detail, too: “But even without a ban on prone restraints, he said that state law would continue to prohibit school-based officers from pinning students to the ground in ways that restrict breathing.”
I despise that quote, because it is false on its face. The position they are unbanning is one that restricts breathing. I just saw a link on lemmy a few days ago about this very position and how dangerous it is.
As far as the money for training goes, i hate that too. Its ostensibly to train cops not to kill kids while using the move that we’re now allowing them to do because they had a tantrum and quit when we told them they couldn’t.
We don’t need cops in schools, period, and paying for the privilege of having them back? Has me straight fucking pissed.
None of this ire is directed at you, mind you, youre great :D