Voters In Minneapolis To Decide The Fate Of City's Police Department

Voters were deciding Tuesday whether to replace the city's police department with a new Department of Public Safety.

Voters in Minneapolis were deciding Tuesday whether to replace the city's police department with a new Department of Public Safety, more than a year after George Floyd's death under the knee of a white police officer launched a movement to defund or abolish police across the country.

Democratic Mayor Jacob Frey was also in a tough fight for a second term, facing a bevy of opponents who have attacked him for his leadership in the wake of Floyd's death. Frey opposed the policing amendment. Two of his leading challengers in the field of 17 candidates, Sheila Nezhad and Kate Knuth, strongly supported the proposal.

Minneapolis voters were also deciding whether to replace the city's unusual "weak mayor, strong council" system with a more conventional distribution of executive and legislative powers that would give the mayor clearer authority over day-to-day government operations.