A Minneapolis business owner said City Council members have “blood on their hands” after voting to cut funds to the Police Department last year, then voting to hire more officers after an increase in violence.
“They saw a whole different kind of opportunity,” Jay Ettinger said of council members in an interview with Fox & Friends Tuesday. “They saw an opportunity to take down a system, and they’ve got a lot of blood on their hands right now because of it. We had over 550 people shot in our city in 2020. We had over 80 murders, and the far majority of those people, those victims, were people of color.”
The Minneapolis City Council said it was working on “reimagining public safety” after George Floyd died while in police custody on Memorial Day. His death launched protests and riots across the country and sparked renewed calls to defund the police.
The City Council voted last year to strip the Police Department of $8 million and instead fund crime prevention programs, after voting in June to dismantle the department.
But since the months of unrest, crime rose in the city, and city officials responded by unanimously approving $6.4 million in funding to hire dozens of police officers.
“If you gave this script to a Hollywood director … they would laugh at the premise. It’s so absurd,” Ettinger said of what has happened in the city since Floyd’s death.
“This is the most important election in this city’s history,” Ettinger added of the City Council election in November. “I mean, if we get it right, we can turn this around really quickly.”
“What this city looks like today compared to two and three years ago is startling,” he added. “And so this election, we got to get it right, and we have to vote for the greater good. We have to vote for what’s best for everybody in our community.”
