Plan to defund police approved by Minneapolis City Council

A total of nine members of the Minneapolis City Council pledged their support in "dismantling" the city's police department, which represented a veto-proof majority of the 13 sitting city council members, according to WABE.

The council members stated their position publicly on Sunday, announcing it from the stage at a rally organized by Black Lives Matter activists in reaction to the police killing of George Floyd, two weeks ago.

"We will be taking intermediate steps toward ending the MPD through the budget process and other policy and budget decisions over the coming weeks and months," council president Lisa Bender and council member Andrea Jenkins told the crowd at Powderhorn Park.

The lawmakers admitted that the details of how to go about eradicating the police are still be worked out and they are not quite sure what it will look like.

Calls to defund police departments and shift those funds to bolster existing community outreach programs have been growing in cities and municipalities across the country.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey was booed out of a protest after he disagreed about the call to defund the police.

That incident quickly turned into what is known as a "struggle session," where people are humiliated and sometimes tortured for holding opposing political ideologies.

But calls to defund police departments have been heard in many major cities in the United States. Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar tweeted out last week that she felt it was time to "defund the police."

The same can be said for New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who announced on Sunday his intentions to defund the NYPD.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti expressed his intent to slash the police department's budget by $100 to $150 million, and instead shifting that money in "reinvesting in black communities and communities of color."

It is unclear as yet just how this transfer of law enforcement power to social justice organizations will be made, and no information has been released on just what major cities will look like with radically altered and defunded police departments.