The Minneapolis City Council is “decimating the police department,” the leader of the city’s police union said Thursday.
Bob Kroll, president of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis, said the city’s police force “cannot keep the public safe” with the recent funding cuts.
“The City Council is decimating the police department,” Kroll told Fox News. “The number of working officers is the lowest it’s been in 50 years. Murders, shootings, and other violent crimes are approaching record levels. Our officers are severely overworked, understaffed, and cannot keep the public safe with these cuts.”
His comments were made after the Minneapolis City Council voted to move $7.7 million out of the police department’s budget for next year. That’s in addition to the $14 million cut already included in Mayor Jacob Frey’s budget proposal.
Mylan Masson, a retired Minneapolis officer, said current officers are “very upset” and “don’t know what to do.”
“They don’t know whether they should be taking crime in their hands or if they should be staying back. They obviously are professionals and they’re answering their calls, but the call load is so high and the force is being so stressed out that it can take up to five hours to answer a single call,” she said in an interview with Fox News.
Masson said the rise in crime could be due to boredom among youth who aren’t participating in school activities because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Anthony Gockowski
Anthony Gockowski is Editor-in-Chief of Alpha News. He previously worked as an editor for The Minnesota Sun and Campus Reform, and wrote for the Daily Caller.
