Reflections on Minneapolis, New York, Race, Policing, and Zoning - Part 1 of 3

The following is a guest post by Andrea McArdle, Professor of Law, City University of New York School of Law

Author's Note: These reflections on recent developments in Minneapolis and New York City are offered through an urban lens and a property-based perspective, prompted in part by an  American studies/urban studies background,  past work co-editing two collections on policing (in the late Giuliani and early Bloomberg years in New York) and teaching property, real estate, and urban land use courses.

Part 1: Reflections on Minneapolis, New York, and the Limited Context of Policing Reforms

Minneapolis and New York, markedly different in size, demography, economy, and geography, have become bound together by the anguished exclamation, “I can’t breathe,” the shared cry of Minneapolis resident George Floyd on Memorial Day and, five years earlier, New York City resident Eric Garner, unarmed African-American men who died during police-initiated interactions.  Despite progressive political cultures, both cities have long been plagued by police violence against African-Americans as well as stark socioeconomic disparities. The social protests that have roiled both cities, and communities across the U.S. and globally, since the killing of George Floyd by police officer Derek Chauvin have already produced legislative and policy reforms. Minneapolis has banned police use of chokeholds, and a “veto-proof” nine members of its City Council have committed to defund the city’s police department and create a new paradigm of public safety. Chauvin, and the other officers present at George Floyd’s killing, were dismissed and have been criminally charged. The New York City Council has criminalized chokeholds, among other reform measures, Mayor Bill deBlasio promised to transfer funds from the police department’s $6 billion budget to youth and social services, in a partial response to similar defunding demands, and the Police Commissioner reassigned 600 officers of a famously aggressive anticrime unit. The New York State legislature has also enacted reforms, and New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo issued an executive order requiring all localities to “reinvent” their police departments and adopt confirming legislation by next April 1.

These reforms, and the larger policy discussion that informs them, are positive, if belated, developments, but on their own they are unlikely to change significantly the trajectory of people of color in Minneapolis and New York City. In recent years both cities had taken steps to improve police accountability, but police-community relations have remained fraught. New York City repudiated reliance on extensive stop-and-frisk practices in 2014, implemented neighborhood-based policing, and committed to de-escalation and implicit-bias training. The previous Minneapolis police commissioner initiated police use of body cameras and sought a Department of Justice review of the police department’s early intervention warning system in an effort to assess and improve it. The department also adopted a policy calling upon officers to interrupt other officers’ use of excessive force, a policy that Derek Chauvin’s fellow officers ignored as they watched or assisted Chauvin when he applied his knee to George Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes, even after Floyd had become unresponsive as he lay prone on the ground.

The aggressive policing that targeted George Floyd and Eric Garner occurred in a societal context that reveals how law enforcement, and the long history of criminalizing African-Americans in the U.S., are deeply implicated with socioeconomic status and (the absence of) property ownership. This societal disenfranchisement of African-Americans and other people of color evokes Mario Cuomo’s memorable speech at the 1984 Democratic Convention, a “Tale of Two Cities,” a narrative recognizing unequally situated  communities, metaphorical cities coexisting within the same polity. The narrative exposes the wide gulf separating material conditions and opportunities: one “city”, well resourced, enjoys access to higher-quality housing, health care, education, and employment; the other, socially and economically marginalized, disproportionately comprising people of color, struggles with substandard housing and underfunded schools in environmentally degraded neighborhoods.

The disparities in resources between cities within a city are reflected and reinforced in their relationships with law enforcement. The well-resourced city relies on local police forces to provide public safety and protect private property. The under-resourced city has little property to protect but often experiences a high degree of public-safety risk, typically with little assurance that its heightened need will be met. The under-resourced city generally has a charged relationship with law enforcement personnel, fueled by stereotypical constructions of lower-income people of color as dangerous and criminally transgressive.