A pledge for police reform

MINNEAPOLIS The Minneapolis Police Department will withdraw from police union contract negotiations, Chief Medaria Arradondo said Wednesday, as he announced initial steps in what he said would be transformational reforms to the agency in the wake of George Floyd s death. Faced with calls from activists and a majority of City Council members to dismantle or defund the department, Arradondo also said he would use a new system to identify problem officers early and intervene. We will have a police department that our communities view as legitimate, trusting and working with their best minterests at heart, he said at a news conference more than two weeks after Floydm died. Awhite officer pressedhis knee into the handcuffed black man s neck even after he stopped moving and pleading for air. Activists have pointed to racial inequities and brutality, as well as a system that rarely disciplines problem officers. The officer charged with murder, Derek Chauvin, had 17 complaiisciplined only once. Arradondo said taking a deliberate pause to review the union contract is the first step tow