Activists Investigate The History Of Relationships Of MPD With African Americans

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

So much has happened in Minneapolis in the last 24 hours, as we just heard - demonstrations - some of them violent - the burning of the police precinct, the arrest this afternoon of the fired police officer. The relationship between the Minneapolis Police Department and black residents has included violence since the department was established more than a century and a half ago. That is according to MPD150, an independent community coalition that published an investigation of the department's history. Well, Tony Williams is part of MPD150. He joins me now. Tony Williams, welcome.

TONY WILLIAMS: Good afternoon, Mary. I'm happy to be speaking to you from occupied Dakota land today.

KELLY: Occupied Dakota land. All right. Well, welcome. We are going to get to the history, but this is - it's so raw. I want to start just with your top line reaction to what happened last night, and then to Derek Chauvin being charged this afternoon with murder.

KELLY: Yeah. We're in deep mourning for George Floyd here in Minneapolis. Last night was an inevitable consequence to a long chain of events stretching back, like you said, more than 150 years. The last time that there was an uprising of this scale in Minneapolis was in 1967, where a similar incident of police brutality against black people led to an insurrection on the north side of our city. The city leaders, at that point, were promising that they could reform the department. And 50 years later, they're still promising.