Can a city survive without a police force? Minneapolis is about to find out: Council votes to dismantle 'toxic' police force over mayor's objections
- Minneapolis councilors have voted to abolish the city's 'toxic' police force after the death of George Floyd
- City's mayor Jacob Frey, 38, has opposed the move, but councilors have a veto-proof three-quarters majority
- Plan would involve defunding police service and reinvesting money in community services and prevention
- Camden, New Jersey, undertook reforms in 2012 - but has a population just a tenth the size of Minneapolis
Minneapolis councilors have voted to abolish the city's police force in an historic move that comes after days of protests over the killing of George Floyd during an arrest.
The city council voted with a veto-proof three-quarters majority to begin the process of dismantling the 'toxic' police department on Sunday - overruling the objections of 38-year-old mayor Jacob Frey.
While the exact next steps are unclear, the plan broadly calls for:
- Funds to be taken from the police department and moved into community services aimed at preventing crime
- Money would instead go to mental health services, social services, jobs programs, and arts groups
- Routine jobs such as traffic stops, overdose call-outs and mental health calls to be taken away from officers
- The creation of a smaller, specialized force to deal with violent crimes
- County sheriffs, whose jurisdiction includes Minneapolis, could be used as a stop-gap police force
The move will likely face legal challenges, including from the city's police union which has so far resisted attempts at reform, and could get tied up for months in red tape. 
Minneapolis has voted to abolish the city's police force with a veto-proof majority despite the objections of mayor Jacob Frey, 38 (pictured), who was booed by protesters at the weekend after refusing to back the demand
Council President Lisa Bender told CNN on Sunday that having no police department will not happen 'in the short term', but said city leaders are committed 'to dismantling policing as we know it in the city of Minneapolis and to rebuild with our community a new model of public safety that actually keeps our community safe.'
Councilors do not have direct control over the police force but they do have control over the way the department is funded, meaning they could effectively shut it down by removing funding.
Announcing the result of the vote on Sunday, Bender addressed crowds in Powderhorn Park Sunday, just blocks away from where Floyd was filmed suffocating to death while being knelt on by police officers for nine minutes.
This undated photo of George Floyd has been released courtesy his high school friend Mallory Jackson on June 7
'We're here because we hear you. We are here today because George Floyd was killed by the Minneapolis Police,' Bender said.
'We are here because here in Minneapolis and in cities across the United States it is clear that our existing system of policing and public safety is not keeping our communities safe.
'Our efforts at incremental reform have failed. Period.'
Camden, New Jersey, is the only city in recent years to undertake similar reforms. It scrapped its police force in 2012 after being named one of the most violent places in America, and has reported positive results.
But it is far from clear that the same strategy will work in Minneapolis - a city with almost six times the population of Camden and with a police force that is more than three times the size of Camden's when it was removed.
A joint statement issued by the council members read: 'Decades of police reform efforts have proved that the Minneapolis Police Department cannot be reformed, and will never be accountable for its action.
'We are here today to begin the process of ending the Minneapolis Police Department and creating a new transformative model for cultivating safety in our city.
'We recognize that we don't have all the answers about what a police-free future looks like, but our community does.
'We're committing to engaging with every willing community member in the City of Minneapolis over the next year to identify what safety looks like for everyone.'
'We'll be taking intermediate steps towards ending the MPD through the budget process and other policy and budget decisions over the coming weeks and months.'
Defunding police services has been a key demand of protesters that have taken to streets across the nation in the wake of Floyd's death on May 25.
While no city other than Minneapolis has committed to abolishing its police department, several much-larger cities - including New York and Los Angeles - have committed to moving funds away from policing and into community services instead.
On Saturday, Minneapolis mayor Frey was been booed out of a Black Lives Matter demonstration after refusing to defund the city's police department - as Rep. Ilhan Omar called for it to be disbanded.
Frey proved to be at odds with activists fighting police brutality just two days after he sobbed uncontrollably at the foot of George Floyd's gold coffin during a memorial service.
'I have been coming to grips with my own responsibility, my own failure in this,' Frey said Saturday.
'If you're asking whether I'm for massive structural reform to revise a structurally racist system the answer is 'yes.' If you're asking whether I will do everything possible to push back on the inherent inequities that are literally built into the architecture the answer is 'yes,'' said Frey.
'If you're asking whether I'm willing to do everything I possibly can throughout the rest of my term to make sure that the police union, the police contract, the arbitration system, and some of these policies that have resulted in problems for specifically Black and Brown people and murder over series of generations, I'm all for that.
'I'm not for abolishing the entire police department, I will be honest about that,' Frey said.
Hundreds gathered in Powderhorn Park to hear what the council was going to propose
Jeremiah Ellison, Minneapolis City Council member tweeted just as the it was announced the city will defund the Minneapolis Police Department
Frey's handling of Floyd's death and the subsequent protests that have surged across Minneapolis has been under intense scrutiny.
Minneapolis was the center of both violent and peaceful protests following the Memorial Day death of George Floyd.
Floyd died after white cop Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes, ignoring Floyd's 'I can't breathe' cries and holding it there even after Floyd stopped moving.
'It shouldn't have taken so much death to get us here,' said Kandace Montgomery, the director of Black Vision at the rally.
'We're safer without armed, unaccountable patrols supported by the state hunting black people.'
Community activists have criticized the department for years for what they say is a racist and brutal culture that resists change and had been pushing for a new model.
At another march Saturday during which leaders called for defunding the department, Verbena Dempster said she supported the idea.
'I think, honestly, we're too far past' the chance for reform, Dempster told Minnesota Public Radio. 'We just have to take down the whole system.'
Rep. Ilhan Omar tweeted that she was present at the meeting community meeting
City Council members have said they will invest in community-led safety initiatives instead of the police department.
Although no specific plans have yet been announced for the new 'community model' of policing in Minneapolis. the council have pledged to work with the community in drawing up something fresh and with consent according to the New York Times.
Protesters who were present at the rally held close to Powderhorn Lake agreed that it was a breakthrough that elected officials had committed to complete overhaul of policing.
The complete remaking of the department is likely to unfold in coming months although the move to defund or abolish the Minneapolis department is far from assured, with a civil rights investigation likely to unfold over the next several months.
Across the country over the last week, protesters marched on city streets and voiced their demands to cut or abolish police departments altogether frequently chanting 'defund the police'.
Rep. Omar tweeted that she was present at the meeting community meeting Sunday. At another protest on Saturday she declared 'it's time to disband the Minneapolis Police Department'.
'I will never cosign on funding a police department that continues to brutalize us and I will never stop saying, not only do we need dis-invest police but we need to completely dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department,' she said.
'The Minneapolis Police Department is rotten to the root,' Omar continued. 'And so when we dismantle it we get rid of that cancer and we allow for something to rise. And that reimagining allows us to figure out what public safety looks like.'
The state of Minnesota launched a civil rights investigation of the department last week, and the first concrete changes came Friday when the city agreed to ban chokeholds and neck restraints. 
Rep. Ilhan Omar (pictured): ''I will never cosign on funding a police department that continues to brutalize us and I will never stop saying, not only do we need dis-invest police but we need to completely dismantle the Minneapolis Police Department'
Disbanding an entire department has happened before.
In 2012, with crime rampant in Camden, New Jersey, the city disbanded its police department and replaced it with a new force that covered Camden County.
Compton, California, also took the same step in 2000, shifting its policing to Los Angeles County.
It was a step that then-Attorney General Eric Holder said the Justice Department was considering for Ferguson, Missouri, after the death of Michael Brown.
The city eventually reached an agreement short of that but one that required massive reforms overseen by a court-appointed mediator.
Chauvin has been charged with second degree murder along with three other officers - Thomas Lane, Tou Thao, and J Alexander Kueng who have been charged with aiding and abetting in Floyd's fatal arrest for allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill on Memorial Day two weeks ago.
George Floyd was filmed two weeks ago on Monday begging the Minneapolis cop to stop and told him he could not breathe before he lost consciousness and later died
Former Minneapolis police officers (clockwise from top left) Derek Chauvin, Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng booking photographs. Chauvin is now charged with second-degree murder, and his three fellow officers are charged with aiding and abetting
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