A district court judge in Minneapolis has ordered the city to hire additional police officers according to multiple news outlets.
Under the Thursday order, the city must have 730 sworn officers by June 30, 2022. Fox9-TV said the city was projecting to have only 669 sworn officers by June 1, 2022.
The Star Tribune newspaper noted the court ruling was a victory for eight activists who sued the city. The activists had filed suit last year, citing high levels of violent crime in Minneapolis.
Judge Jamie Anderson said the city must keep the number of police officers at the level mandated by the city charter.
Mayor Jacob Frey and the city council "shall immediately take any and all necessary action" to make sure they fund a police force of at least 0.0017 employees per resident, as called for by the city charter, according to the ruling issued by Anderson.
That would be either 730.33 officer jobs or the number that would equal 0.0017 of the city's 2020 census population when that figure is published later this year, whichever is higher.
In filing the suit, the plaintiffs had said that "Minneapolis is in a crisis," while noting the increase in shootings and homicides.
Sondra Samuels, one of the petitioners, she had no doubts that they would win.
"I'm excited in the court of law that they said, 'Yes, the city of Minneapolis needs to abide by the charter that governs the city," she said. "To have our county say, 'You're right,' it feels like the people won.”
And her husband, Don Samuels, another one of the plaintiffs, said: "We have made the emotional appeal. We have demonstrated the statistical uptick and now this is the legal action we are exercising because it seems as if the city council cannot hear us and doesn’t feel what we feel."
The newspaper pointed out that the ruling came as the police department faces attempts to change its structure and funding as a result of George Floyd’s death.
Former officer Derek Chauvin was sentenced last month to 22 ½ years in prison for killing Floyd.
According to the Star Tribune, the court also ruled that the city must be more proactive with calculating the number of police officers it needs based on census numbers.
Sondra Samuels said she sees the court action as a victory for the three children who were shot, two of them fatally, in Minneapolis in April and May.
"If there were more police, they would still be alive," she said.
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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