Minnesota Experience

There's a difference between history and memory.

The mayor has complete power over the police department.

The entire police department is bound up in these webs of corruption.

- Police brutality and racism.

Black women specifically not being able to feel safe.

In Minneapolis, a truck driver strike was climaxed by severe riots and fights between the strikers and the police.

Hubert Humphrey's early attempts at reforming the police.

You have an influx of native folks from reservations because of relocation policy, and they become a target for the police.

But even in those urban centers, they still find community.

- [Yohuru Williams] From gripping scenes of police accosting nonviolent demonstrators on the streets of Birmingham to the march on Washington, 1963 with its tension between struggle and progress might be the most dramatic year in the modern civil rights era.

(people chattering) But '63 was also the year when a black family settled in Minneapolis, who would eventually change the sound of Minnesota with the emergence of the Grammy winning Sounds of Blackness.

Never say die Keep on Gary Hines, the heart and soul of the Sounds of Blackness, grew up with a potent blend of Black power and Black music.

- Bless you.

- Why Minneapolis?

'Cause I think there'll be some people who legitimately don't understand the history of the city.

- Minneapolis was a jazz mecca.

A lot of times the media treats Prince and like Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis as an aberration.

Like they just appeared.

It's like no, all of their parents were a part of a very small, but a very extremely vibrant and culturally active and astute Black community, especially in terms of music.

We emanated from that tradition.

But right under the veneer of Minnesota nice, which was a real thing, but right underneath that was the stench of racism, okay, police brutality.

- [Yohuru] 1963, of course that spring, there were all kinds of protests taking place in Birmingham, Alabama.

- [Reporter] Bull Connor sends out his cops with clubs, dogs and fire hoses.

- And yet here in Minneapolis, things are happening to set the stage for us.

- So there are these growing tensions between African American communities and native communities and the Minneapolis police.

These had always been present as we've suggested.

But there are also these growing tensions in Minneapolis between the police and various communities of color because of the emerging situation, especially for African Americans on the near north side of Minneapolis.

Two Minneapolis police officers are on patrol.

They identify a vehicle that they have interest in, they pull it over.

It's right outside this little late night cafe.

A crowd gathers.

These are people who have been watching Birmingham on their televisions.

And they start yelling out, "This isn't Birmingham."

"Where are your dogs?"

One gentleman named Raymond Wells, one of his jobs is teaching boxing at the Phyllis Wheatley House.

Mr.

Wells steps up and tries to intervene with these officers.

Again, the situation escalates.

And one of the police officers uses a blackjack on Mr.

Wells.

(suspenseful music) As the trial of Raymond Wells and the three other men who are arrested continues at City Hall, you see more and more community organizers who are really interested in using this moment to try to get the white community in Minneapolis to think about all these forms of racism, discrimination that Black people of every sort in every part of the city are experiencing on a daily basis.

In the meantime, the police officer who engages in that violence against Mr.

Wells is suspended.

So the community sees some action on the part of the police department, some accountability for that officer.

The police officers in his precinct organize a collection for him, because if he is removed from his position temporarily, he's not making any money, he is unable to support his young family.

Mayor Arthur Naftalin finds out about that and he suggests that the captain of that precinct should also be suspended.

So now we're into early June, 1963.

And now police officers are really upset.

They feel that they have been punished for things that they should not be punished for.

And at that moment, late at night, in June, 1963, bombs go off in the front yards of these two police officers' homes, one in northeast and one on the north side.

- [Reporter] Dave, do you think someone was really trying to hurt you last night or were they just trying to scare you?

- I don't really know.

I wished I knew who did it.

- [Reporter] What do you think this is gonna do to the race situation in North Minneapolis?

- I don't think it's going to help it a bit.

We have some splendid colored people who have lived here all their lives and raise their families, and I don't think they go along with this at all.

- One of the first things that happens is that African American civil rights leaders in this city make it very clear that this was not necessarily something that had been done by the African American community.

There are even Black churches who take up collections for both officers.

At the same time, there's a whole host of speculation, rumors running rampant around the city around who might have done this.

If police officers had been aggrieved before this, now they feel as though they have been targeted with violence.

Now they feel as though they are no longer safe.

And of course there's a residency rule in Minneapolis at this time.

So if you're a police officer, you have to live in the city.

They're claiming that it's unsafe to be a police officer living in the city of Minneapolis.

Despite the reward, despite having the best investigator in charge, the investigation goes nowhere.

- It does serve the purpose however, of deepening this narrative among police that they are targeted and need additional protection.

- Absolutely.

This notion that police officers not only have grievances but are actually under threat of violence themselves, in Minneapolis, it takes root in that 1963 incident.

And you really see this narrative slowly emerging about how police officers themselves are not safe.

And of course, by the late 1960s, early 1970s, not only will that be a national narrative that's deeply entrenched within police departments, but it'll be a narrative that's deeply entrenched in the police department here in Minneapolis.

- Communalism is very strong among all African people.

They tend to develop sharing societies wherever they are.

- [Yohuru] A few years removed from the march on Washington, the civil rights movement was losing some of its luster and the Black Power movement was on the rise inspired and informed by leaders like cultural icon and elder Mahmoud El-Kati.

- Well, I didn't know of any other community in America in which people referred to one another as brother and sister.

- [Yohuru] Community centers have always been a place to focus power.

In the 1960s there was the Phyllis Wheatley Community Center and a few other settlement houses.

And then there was The Way led by Syl Davis.

When Syl sat down with you and you kind of connected over the love of jazz, what did he say the vision was for The Way?

- Oh yeah, he's talked about progressive youth organization.

We are going to put emphasis on our culture and our history to try to define ourselves (chill music) - Self-esteem real low, pride real low, non existent, love don't live in them, pain and suffering and poverty.

How can I make 'em smile?

- [Yohuru] Elder Spike Moss is recognized by many as a militant freedom fighter and an unshakeable activist, always present in difficult moments.

But what I learned was that Spike was also a culture bearer who saw music and arts in addition to street protests as a way to make change in the lives of Black youth.

- [Spike Moss] Did the music school.

It was because I could tell when I would do the dances, all these kids, how much they really loved music.

And so many kids who were actually there for sports would stand outside that door and I'd say, "You want to go in?"

And they'd go in.

These days gave them pride.

(chill music) - We were in town like two, three days and our doorbell rings and we're in South Minneapolis.

And at the time it was a big thing.

You know, south siders don't go over north and north siders don't go over south.

You know, we might have a problem kind of thing.

Well, Spike's the king of Minneapolis so he didn't have a problem.

He literally introduces himself, you know, "I am Spike Moss," you know, "from like..." "I heard you guys are drummers kind of thing."

You know, "We'd love to have you come over, you know, and try out, be a part of the Elks," kind of thing.

So we went over north with Spike.

This was 1964 that he said this.

I'll never forget.

He said, "Man, watch out for Minneapolis police."

He said, "You know, they pick us up, take us down the river, you know, work us over, beat us up."

And a lot of Minneapolis police refer to their Billy club, their baton as their (bleep) knocker.

- [Yohuru] To navigate these tense times, the city needed effective leadership.

And in many ways, it had it with Arthur Naftalin who was mayor for most of the difficult decade.

- Art was very cerebral.

He was a political science professor.

He was part of the very early DFL movement in the 1940s.

And so I think he very much reflected Humphrey's views on the need for a modern progressive movement that didn't have communist ties.

Because in the '30s, the dominant progressive group, the Farmer Labor party did in fact have communist ties.

- After 1963, police community relations continue to slowly degrade.

You have a number of reform efforts emanating from city Hall.

Mayor Arthur Naftalin is working hard to try to figure out how to create racially equitable policing.

At one moment he'll be defending the police department saying there's not a race problem.

In another moment he'll be clearly admitting that the department is coming up short on that count.

And in the meantime, both Black and Indigenous communities in the city are advocating more and more loudly for not just themselves, but for policing that actually produces safety in their communities.

- [Yohuru] To address increasing police community conflicts, Mayor Naftalin initiated human rights training building on Mayor Humphrey's groundbreaking police professional development training over a decade before.

But Minneapolis Police resisted these reforms calling the trainings rabidly pro-negro.

(bell ringing) - I will say that training is important, but absolutely insufficient.

What training did Derek Chauvin not receive?

- [Yohuru] Longtime activist and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison sees such resistance as part of the larger problem tied to creating police accountability.

- He was trained on use of force, first aid, all the weapons, he was trained on all these things and he still did what he did.

Why did he do it?

There's no accountability, you know, so.

But training is the easiest politically you can get people to vote for and pay for training.

But to say you broke the rules and now you're gonna have to answer, that's the harder politically.

- [Yohuru] Some training focused on police recruits.

So they did not always address the veterans more set in their ways and attitudes.

A lot of the young guys were the third men on cars, at least in our precinct.

- Michael and I really enjoyed spending time with former MPD detective, William Mavity.

He's just the kind of person you'd want as a cop, an educated, open-minded city resident who'd go on to be a civic leader advocating for holistic public safety.

But as he and other younger officers were coming onto the force in the early and mid 1960s, their ideas of fostering reform from within were often met with stern pushback from the old guard.

Can you tell me what that dynamic was like?

What was the difference between the older, more established officers and the younger?

- They weren't treated very well because there were a lot of older guys who worked in the night wash who had day jobs, and they wanted do what's called going to the hole, a place where they could go and sleep.

And I was third man on a tire.

Both of the older officers wanted to sleep at night 'cause they had day jobs and I didn't like that.

But my turn to drive, I wouldn't stay in the hole.

I would get out and drive around.

My partners weren't that happy about it.

They had a lot of police misconduct and what have you and a lot of bad stuff.

There was a case where we had a lot of burglaries in a special area.

I had started pin maps so we could know where robberies and burglaries were and that sort of thing.

To make a long story short, the older officers were breaking into businesses.

- They were burglarizing the businesses.

- They were burglarizing these things.

They break in, they take the money out and then calling in, "There's been of burglary here," that kind of thing.

And they were all fired from the department.

And that affected the young officers here too, that they started to see that being on the police department wasn't really all that great if you had those kind of things going on.

- What were your impressions of The Way as an organization when it emerged?

- I think I was not very impressed or happy about it when it first come out.

But I learned from Cooper, for example, Cooper went and walked the beat down by The Way.

And Cooper kind of demonstrated that The Way was really a pretty good place.

And if they could make connection with the police, get friends with them, it would be a good thing.

So I became pretty impressed too.

And also that officers did become friends with the community and the young officers, a lot of them, and Cooper was a good example, got out of their cars, worked with the street gangs, talked to 'em, you know?

When they had to answer a call that was problematic, they didn't come in there with force.

I mean it was a real difference between the young guys that were there and the old guys.

(suspenseful music) - [Yohuru] But it would be an uphill climb for these young upstart cops as the old guard maintained control of the all important Police Federation.

- [Announcer] It's hard for me to visualize the Minneapolis without America's greatest summer festival.

- [Yohuru] Do you ever remember at Aquatennial any encounters with police?

or kind of resistance to your presence there?

- Yes and yes.

In fact, if I can say that, and this is not braggadocio.

When we came through the Sabathanites Drum Corps, the parade was over 'cause everybody was following us, following us in the street.

A number of Minneapolis police, you know, didn't like that.

But what do we do?

We're just marching kind of thing.

We're causing disturbance.

No, we're not.

We're doing what we're in the parade to do.

You know, some of us went to jail, some were beaten by police, yeah, having done nothing.

(suspenseful music) - Describe to me what it felt like to be at Aquatennial as a person of color.

- The next day, we would find out how many got beat up every year, we find out how many got jailed.

And they'll let you go outta jail, but two or three days later with no charges.

But it was just humiliating of challenging your right to come downtown is what it was about.

(suspenseful music) - [Yohuru] In 1967, the Aquatennial parade was again a space of tension with the Minneapolis police.

According to many in the community, police roughly handled a Black youth.

The years of mounting police harassment, frustration over slow moving civil rights and other factors boiled over.

- In 1967, that night of the Aquatennial, we were beaten and taken to jail.

(distant siren wailing) And it spilled over into North Minneapolis on Plymouth Avenue.

(suspenseful music) (fire crackling) And especially some of our older community members, a lot of them were Christian, they would ask, "Why are you tear up your own community?

What are you doing?"

And I would tell them that was a Jesus tear up the temple, turn over the tables moment.

When you're in rage and anger, you're gonna offend that anger right there, right now where you are.

(suspenseful music) - I was there in '67 when the uprising occurred.

A revolt against oppression, that's what it was.

It was not a riot.

A riot is nonpolitical.

They got nothing to do with history and economics and Black people's.

revolt grows out of history.

It's no different than Nat Turner or Denmark VT and 250 other insurrections in America on the part of Black people trying to get free from slavery.

And this is a continuation of the same thing.

This is not new.

(suspenseful music) - When George Floyd was murdered, I think there was a lot of attention and national scrutiny on Minneapolis and rightfully so.

Some of that scrutiny attempted to scapegoat Minneapolis as a unique outlier, right, a place that had uniquely high rates of lethal police violence.

But we are absolutely not unique in terms of having a police force that enforces what the Minnesota Department of Human Rights called race-based policing.

And we are absolutely not unique in having a police force that disproportionately kills Black and Brown man.

People don't pay attention to police violence unless there are activists there who are spotlighting the issue for the public.

I don't think Minneapolis is unique because George Floyd was murdered here.

I think Minneapolis is unique because it erupted in protest and it forced the country and the world to watch.

(suspenseful music) (distant siren wailing) (fire crackling) - Art comes down to the scene.

And luckily, there were some people that he relied on for advice, African Americans.

One of whom was Josie Johnson, who was still very active.

They urged restraint.

And they told Art, "Don't send the cops out and start cracking heads.

It would just make things worst."

And Art bought that argument.

And so he and the chief kept the MPD back, and as a result, the disturbances didn't get worse.

- The Negroes in our community are enormously and deeply concerned about these disturbances.

- He was the first mayor in my history who literally came to the Black community and was trying to work it out.

- Well, you are given opportunities better.

You see, I'm here and I wanna go to work.

And we expect that at least 60 of you will go to work tomorrow.

- Right.

- Not next week.

And not next month.

- Right.

- To his detriment, he's the one that actually asked the questions to what happened.

So they were really mad at him.

White people went crazy 'cause he was digging deep.

So there wasn't no way he was gonna get reelected.

- [Yohuru] As 1969 ground to a close, Arthur Naftalin announced he would not seek reelection, leaving the city to navigate police community relations without the empathy and diplomacy that marked his handling of Plymouth Avenue.

- After the first night, mayor Naftalin asked the governor to call out the National Guard.

And so the question is why calling out the National Guard?

But one of the observers, Harry Davis, who was a Black leader, observed.

He said that Art knew his force very well.

And the reason that he brought out the National Guard was mainly as a buffer between the cops and the protestors.

He realized that he wanted to keep the situation from escalating and it worked.

But there was one cop who happened to be head of the Police Federation who didn't like the idea that the troops were being held back and that policeman was named Charlie Stenvig.

And he would later emerge as a political figure himself.

(suspenseful music) - What were your impressions of Charlie Stenvig in the beginning?

- Not good.

My impression of him changed pretty early that he was not somebody that I wanted to be with.

- Chuck Stenvig.

My goodness.

Mr.

Law and Order.

You know, no problem with Law and Order, but why does it only apply to us?

Okay.

- It won't help the problem a bit.

It'll make our job harder.

- Putting the police in riot gear with ax handles looking like the Alabama State Patrol with the dogs and all of that.

- I'll just give you a big smile because I'd hate to be around here.

- A lot of people believe at one point when he became the Federation president, he was a good guy, but he wasn't.

- Obviously Charlie had his favorites and the MPD became very politicized.

- The election of Stenvig, I think there's no clearer emblem of this dynamic of police unions policing politics than to see a union president, right, in the role of mayor.

If we go back to '67, in Minneapolis and across the country, there was a moment there where there was the possibility for really transformative change.

The Kerner Commission comes out and says the reason we're seeing these riots is not just about the police, it is about the fact that we have two societies, one white and one Black, and it is white racism.

It is anti-Blackness that propels these.

That is the ultimate cause of this unrest.

And so you saw this moment, right, but what do we actually get?

We get instead this rightward turn both in Minneapolis and across the country, and we get the development of policies that led to the brutal policing policies that we would see in the present that led to mass incarceration.

All of that comes out in part of this backlash reaction to limited gains and in some cases profound gains of the civil rights movement and this decade of organizing and rebellion.

- Michelle's point is sobering, but makes sense.

In Minneapolis, anti-war protests and Black, Brown and Native power movements combined with worries over crime meant that LBJ and Vice President Humphrey's call for the Great Society was muted by the call for crackdowns in communities with the rising militarization of city police departments as a consequence.

Today it's become fairly common for people to talk about the militarization of the police, particularly in relationship to the war in Iraq and the adoption of kind of military tactics and armament that we've seen used or deployed on the battlefield being incorporated into municipal departments.

You argue that that's not a new phenomenon.

- Yeah, it's not new at all.

Some of the more thoughtful people who lay out that critique take us back to the 1960s and the Vietnam War and the emergence of flying squads and what in Los Angeles will be the SWAT teams, which are then adopted in the 1970s and municipalities all over the country.

- [Yohuru Williams] Through the 1960s, the Minneapolis police ramped up their military sounding flying squads.

These patrols were freed up from routine duties to cruise for crime.

They were often assigned to the near north side.

In 1968, Minneapolis police purchased 10 AR-15 rifles ostensibly to prepare for civil unrest.

A US Marine Corps Reserve Colonel and professor at the University of Minnesota said that the rifles had no place in the police arsenal.

The weapons were subsequently returned, but not without controversy.

By the 1960s, there's a slogan to go along with that.

Bring back law and order.

Talk about the rise of Stenvig in that context.

How is he both a reflection of that and how is he also kind of spearheading that here in Minneapolis?

- January 1965, he becomes the president of that police union and he immediately goes to battle with Mayor Arthur Naftalin and with the city council over questions of working conditions, like any union leader.

- I believe the patrolmen should have higher wages.

The salary should be based on what the men and what the police officers are worth and not on the funds available.

- He's concerned about wages, he's concerned about time off, he's concerned about sick leave.

- [Calvin] Charlie Stenvig and I personally got along very well.

He was a close friend of my brother, Charles.

On the whole, he did a pretty good job.

Some officers thought he was a little bit wild and too unstable to represent them.

He used the Federation in various ways to further his political advantage.

- [Yohuru] What you see is a police union that really ramps up its political involvement.

So it's critical to understand Stenvig's ascent as partly about the ways in which the police union is moving towards electoral politics, into policymaking itself, to controlling the levers of government, running for mayor.

Absolutely critical.

- Quell or stop rumors.

- [Yohuru] He actually does not get the endorsement of Richard Nixon, who is the kind of national law and order candidate because Stenvig stands outside that party structure.

- He had an endorsement letter by the president of my opponent.

President Nixon refers to me as an extremist and reactionary for advocating law and order for the city of Minneapolis.

- [Yohuru] He's pairing this law and order message with a kind of an early version of what we would understand today as evangelical Christianity.

- But God has always led me and he's never let me down.

And I say God's gonna be my chief advisor and it won't cost the city a penny.

- [Yohuru] It proves to be a winning combination, and Stenvig will win that general election in June, largely with the support of the white working class in the city of Minneapolis, including the support of organized labor.

Again, his union roots, his roots in the police officer's federation are absolutely critical because he's a known and open union advocate.

Once he's elected, in June, 1969, all the efforts that had made some headway in city government across the city of Minneapolis to try to grapple with racialized policing were undone within three or four months.

- I can't understand a man taking such great pride in people in this community being afraid of him.

- I've been called everything but a Democrat or a Republican in this race so far.

The one that hurt me the most of anything is be called a racist or a bigot.

And I'll prove myself in that line that I'm not and I believe in equality for all.

(brooding music) - Mayor Stenvig had campaigned on taking the handcuffs off the police, and that's one way to describe violent nights on Plymouth Avenue later that summer of '69.

Matt Eubanks, an activist and leader of the Citizens Community Centers, was convening community members late into the night outside The Way.

Deputy Inspector Edwin Schonnesen was in charge of the massing police presence.

Legendary journalist and then Star Tribune reporter, Molly Ivins, described the confrontation as looking like a miniature replay of the Chicago Democratic Convention a year earlier.

- [Molly] Crowds taunting, police charging, shouting, the screams of civilians caught in the charge.

Riot sticks rising and coming down.

The thud of kicks on the body sensed rather than heard.

At 12: 22 AM the police lines paused as a crowd reached the intersection of Plymouth and Morgan.

Suddenly there was a shout of charge.

The police rushed forward and the crowd scattered.

Again, the military attack yell, the shoes pounding the pavement, screaming, panic, sudden jamming into the way.

Then the stick rises and comes down at his head again and again.

He falls.

He is kicked again and again.

It is all in the television film taken at the scene.

- It was not attack upon and individual, but it was attack upon a community.

It's one force in the community opposed to another group of powerless people who are attempting to assert their right, you know, their right to control their own lives, to control their own destinies control- - It highlights the limits and fragility of Minneapolis's history and understanding of itself as a liberal place.

It highlights the importance of that pushback in the 1970s.

- We return to our original position.

- [Yohuru] Along with winning the mayor's office, the police federation had won on other fronts in the early 1970s as well.

In 1971, a grand jury issued a report with a number of recommendations, including one that suggested that public employees, police included, should be limited in their attempts to influence city policy, calling such activities a threat to democratic processes.

Also, a dramatic win for reform came from a state Supreme Court decision that gave the city the power to subpoena police officers.

for the first time.

These reforms were wins, but Mayor Stenvig and the police union pushed back hard.

- None of us can escape the fact that cities throughout the nation, Minneapolis included, faced many serious problems.

- I do believe that perhaps some hoodlums, shall we use the word, have been dictating policy to some degree.

- [Yohuru] The federation actively lobbied council members to nullify the court order and the police politicking worked.

The city voted overwhelmingly to rescind the court order.

As with previous reforms and regulation efforts from the 80 years before, it was another step forward, two steps back.

Police political power was growing.

Unfortunately, the grim count of police brutality incidents against diverse communities was growing as well.

- Stenvig was, when he was head of the federation, he was someone that was actively opposed to the young people doing anything other than being told what to do.

Young officers tried very hard, oh probably 20 or 30 of us to bring about some changes.

- [Yohuru] Next generation MPD officers like William Mavity continue to try to bring community policing and professionalization to the MPD but continue to run into resistance from Stenvig and the old guard.

- These officers saw this brutality targeting people of color on the street as deeply problematic.

They also understood that better educated officers could be one way to start to change that culture in the department.

And so they were advocating for changes in pay structure and benefit structures for those officers with college degrees 'cause many officers at the time did not have university degrees.

- Professionalization, not politicization as a response to those demands.

- I know that I could have been killed out there at any time or any moment.

So I don't know how I really accept it.

I just go out and try to do my job.

I don't even think about when I leave the house.

I don't even think about whether I may not come home or I may go out to work and be killed within an hour after I get to work.

- [William] Talking about shooting, because I was on that particular squad of burglaries and robberies, I ended up being involved in three types of shootings.

Twice, I shot and killed robbers and robbery people that where we got on scene and got them.

One ended up causing me to have some real damage to my head.

- You get used to just about most everything on the job, except when something happens to a little kid.

- Even that you're able to, you know, kind of, you know, push it aside after a while.

But sure you think about that stuff when you get, when somebody gets shot, you think about it.

You know, anybody be a liar if they said, "Well that don't bother me."

That's- you think about it.

It there.

- Let me ask you about this fraternity of young officers that you're working with.

What would you say was your primary motivation of that group?

What were you interested in in terms of reform?

- I think that we thought by creating a chapter of that in Minneapolis police, we would get more attention and we thought that would help us find more community support for what we were trying to do.

It was pretty clear that there was a division, there were Federation people and there were people that were young officers trying to bring some good things and new things into the department.

And unfortunately with Stenvig then becoming mayor, a lot of guys left.

They never really achieved what they had hoped to achieve.

- [Yohuru] Mavity, looking for professional development opportunities, accepted an invitation to study policing abroad.

But a conflict over his status with the department during the fellowship played into Stenvig's efforts to silence him.

- I came back happy with all the ideas and the things I had, projects I had, I had written some of them out and everything and I walked into his office on that Monday morning.

He got very angry.

Got red in the face and he said, "You're the one that caused me all these problems with the city council."

He was angry at me 'cause we put in a ride along, I mean, he was angry with me because I was writing articles that went in the paper.

If you leave this department, we're gonna fire you.

You are being disciplined for 15 days off without pay for violating the chain of command.

So I stood up, I looked at Charlie and I said, "(bleep) you, Charlie, I quit."

- Having the ear of the mayor when the mayor is in charge of public safety is absolutely critical.

And that raises the question of who should be mayor.

And that makes me think about 1971 and the election between Harry Davis and Charles Stenvig.

- Very important moment because Harry Davis is an African American.

Experiences really what we mean in terms of the coming of the police state in a way that he's treated in terms of his security detail.

- Well, there's no way in the world that I can keep it outta the campaign, you know, because whenever I appear, people know that I'm Black.

- He's running for office.

He's got the DFL endorsement.

He's the most important civil rights leader at that moment, probably in the state of Minnesota.

He's respected widely across racial lines.

Harry Davis wants to change policing in Minneapolis.

And remember, this is after one term with Charlie Stenvig, in which the police are in charge of the police, literally in city government.

- We are in a police state.

- You are literally in a police state and lots of different kinds of people recognize it as such.

And so Davis says, one of the things that has to change is policing in this city.

The police force needs to look a lot more like the broader community.

- And that's threatening to many officers within the department.

- Many officers who are enjoying the fact that the police are in charge of the police.

Officers are going to be protected from accountability.

In the election that follows, during that campaign, he finds himself experiencing death threats.

He finds his family threatened.

There's a police detail assigned to protect him.

And then in fact, that police detail is eventually replaced by FBI agents.

- You were the target of some horrible, horrible death threats.

- Every day, all day.

Not only my wife but my kids.

I had two sons that were outstanding athletes and those two dogs there were brought to my home by the FBI because there were so many threats.

- The problematic ways in which Black and brown people experienced policing is put on full display in 1971 with the dragging of Randy Samples.

Randy is 12 years old?

- 12 years old.

- [Yohuru] And he is out on a Saturday, outside of an arcade.

- On Hennepin Avenue.

- And the officers are attempting to arrest a perpetrator.

Randy and his friend are kind of watching and what happens?

- The police dogs are out.

He ends up in this altercation with the police dog and then that becomes an altercation with these officers.

He will find himself arrested.

This 12-year-old boy will be dragged by his heels across Hennepin Avenue in broad daylight in downtown Minneapolis.

- So importantly, there'll be a photographer on hand from the Star-Tribune who will capture this image of the police dragging Randy Samples and it'll go national.

Two years later, Time Magazine would offer this now emblematic image, celebrating the good life in Minnesota describing its political and civic stability.

But it's hard for me not to think about these two iconic images and the Minnesota paradox.

Minneapolis seemed ready to rethink this police state approach to city politics when DFLer Al Hofstede solidly defeated Stenvig in the election of 1973.

Hoffstead's first order of business was to address the MPD.

- Because you know, I've only been in this office, you know, for three months and if there are complaints and they're not handled properly or people feel that they are not handled properly, then we have to make some changes.

But I'm willing to listen.

- [Yohuru] He eventually appointed one of Mavity's peers from the fraternity, Officer Jack Jensen as Chief of Police.

- [Jack] If there is deteriorating relationship between the Blacks within the community, that is my responsibility.

- [Yohuru] Among the innovations Chief Jensen initiated was more effort at making complaints against the MPD public.

- We have taken what statements that we have and the information we have and presented to the county attorney.

- To see people so fresh and open, I think of all ethnic minorities and racial makeups and social status makeups.

It's just a, like I say, it's a microcosm of Americana and it's a beautiful place to police because they really need the police and the police really need them.

- Gonna have to have some kind of community relations with police to the point where there's a mutual respect.

And that's what Jensen brought into the community.

- [Yohuru] But on the street, black and blue tension continued unabated.

This was decided the beating of Mrs.

Willie May Demmings, April 20th, 1975.

Three Minneapolis police officers charge up her stairs in search of her son, Gregory Demmings.

- [Mrs.

Demmings] They had their guns out and they were getting ready to kick my door in.

- So Willie May will actually get through to the porch.

They immediately begin to manhandle her, - [Mrs.

Demmings] And one of 'em grabbed my head and slapped it up against the door jam so that it got my neck twisted around into the door.

- They actually used the door and the door jam and they put her head and neck between the two and closed the door back on it.

- [Mrs.

Demmings] And I couldn't do anything.

And my children were in the house and they was hollering and screaming and crying and trying to help me, trying to keep the police from hurting me.

- The police proceed to enter the home where they then assault her two children.

- [Mrs.

Demmings] One of the policemen kicked my 15-year-old son.

One of the policemen hit my 14-year-old daughter.

- Mrs.

Demmings ends up being arrested, charged with assault.

She spends two hours in jail and eight days in the hospital.

- It seems to us that the police department in Minneapolis has declared war on Blacks and Indians in Minneapolis.

- [Yohuru] This war on Blacks and Indians claim came in 1975.

That same year, Stenvig once again captured the mayor's office.

Jack Jensen, the young reforming chief, said he wouldn't serve under Stenvig because he disagreed with the mayor's mixing of policing and politics.

By the late 1970s, many from the fraternity, the younger reform-minded cops were pushed out of the MPD sometimes leaving the department for leadership opportunities elsewhere.

Minneapolis residents again turned to mutual aid and self-reliance for public safety, including against abusive police.

- The Soul Patrol's position was, if he did a crime, take him to jail, but don't harm him.

If you harm him, we're gonna interfere.

That was their role - And that was really to police the police.

- Right.

- Police stopping someone.

Why don't you just stop here, turn your lights off.

You may get a chance to see what's happening.

- One of the best trivia facts is that the American Indian movement was born in Minneapolis in 1968.

The less fun fact about it is that it is directly in response to police brutality.

- Could you imagine for us a little bit what it must have been like for AIM as they're implementing their strategy and program here in Minneapolis?

Why these patrols were so important and what they would've looked like on the ground?

- When you have, you know, native folks who start coming together under what becomes AIM, in some of the early meetings, they're thinking about what are the most pressing issues?

Is it housing discrimination?

Is it unemployment?

Is it education?

Is it healthcare?

Is it policing?

Obviously all of these things are important, but for native folks in Minneapolis, the number one issue is police brutality.

And so the creation of the AIM Patrol, which has its roots in the Black Panthers, you know, the cop watching patrols in North Minneapolis in 1967, is really a way for native folks to quite literally protect themselves.

And so you have the folks, they'd put on the red shirts, they'd put on these bright red jackets, they'd have their two-way radios and their police scanners and their going to these places where, you know, there's an incident or potentially an incident between native folks and Minneapolis police officers.

And they're bystanders.

They're not interfering, they're not doing anything, but they're observing.

And in many cases they're recording.

And so their presence, in many instances, helped resolve the situation in a much more peaceful manner.

The story of AIM often focuses on what becomes kind of the militant side of things, right?

With like, you know, the BIA takeover, the Siege of Wounded Knee and things like that.

But when we only focus on that section of AIM, we lose how it started and why it started.

And the fact that you have native men, native women, you have elders, you have, you know, people in their thirties who are all coming together to protect their community in different ways and through different forms.

There's a really fantastic photo of the first AIM meeting, and they're all smiling.

That's one of the photos I love to reference, that I love to show in my classes because again, it shows that joy because you have native folks who recognize nobody's gonna help them.

And so they decide to help themselves.

(dramatic music) - [Yohuru] Conflict, confusion and dysfunction rose within the MPD, leading popular newspaper columnist, Jim Klobuchar, father of Senator Amy Klobuchar, to describe the department state as anarchy.

- [Michael Lansing] These deep political abides in the department render incredible dysfunction.

- [Yohuru] In 1979, longstanding DFL leader Don Fraser ran for mayor with police reform as a central plank of his platform.

- I think the question will remain as to whether we can institutionalize some means of keeping the police out of politics and to keep them on it as a professional group.

- He had very strong views about things, but he didn't let him on.

So he was very unusual for a politician.

And he was certainly not a glad hander.

And I remembered that unlike Hubert Humphrey, who remembered everybody's name, I don't think Don remembered anybody's name, but Don was very smart and very focused on policy.

- Every time a new chief came in, a whole new change took place in the department.

People were demoted or reassigned or transferred, and the people who were rewarded were those who'd worked for the campaign of the mayor that particular chief had supported.

It was a bad system.

The public knew it was bad.

We knew that problems in the department were being covered up.

- [Yohuru] Shortly after his victory, Mayor Fraser would launch a national search for police chief.

A new decade would bring a new leader to the department, perhaps a powerful, charismatic police chief that could finally be able to blunt the department with a culture of racialized policing, abuse and apathy, and the stubborn power of the reformed-aversed police federation.

- He runs for mayor on the platform that the police need to be depoliticized, that things are so bad in the city of Minneapolis, that the Minneapolis Police Department is so broken that it can only be fixed by bringing in an outsider.

And that outsider's name is Tony Bouza.

(upbeat music) (bright music)