Minneapolis City Council Members Enjoy Costly Private Security Detail As Push To “Defund The Police” Continues

A “veto-proof” majority of the Minneapolis City Council recently voted to abolish the city police department. And if it wasn’t for the opposition for the city’s Democratic mayor, Minneapolis would soon be sending social workers to investigate murder scenes.

But when it comes to their own protection, council members apparently aren’t embracing the second amendment, like many other liberals in solid-blue states, and instead are relying on the city to hire expensive round-the-clock security after members of the council received multiple death threats. Currently, the protection is costing taxpayers $4,500 to hire security for three council members.

Over the past three weeks, the bill for the city has come to more than $60,000.

Here’s more from Fox 9:

The City of Minneapolis is spending $4,500 a day for private security for three council members who have received threats following the police killing of George Floyd. A city spokesperson said the private security details have cost the city $63,000 over the past three weeks.

The three council members who have the security detail – Andrea Jenkins (Ward 8), and Phillipe Cunningham (Ward 4), and Alondra Cano (Ward 9)– have been outspoken proponents of defunding the Minneapolis Police Department.

Unsurprisingly, council members didn’t want to discuss the arrangement with the press.

Councilmember Phillipe Cunningham declined to discuss the security measures.

“I don’t feel comfortable publicly discussing the death threats against me or the level of security I currently have protecting me from those threats,” said Cunningham in a text message.  

Another councilmember, Andrea Jenkins, told Fox 9 that she has been pushing for a security detail since she was sworn in?

Why? Jenkins says the “large number of white nationalists in our city” and several “threatening communications” have given her reason to fear for her life.

Councilmember Andrea Jenkins said she has been asking for security since she was sworn in.  She said current threats have come in the form of emails, letters, and posts to social media.  
 
“My concern is the large number of white nationalist(s) in our city and other threatening communications I’ve been receiving,” wrote Jenkins in an email.
 
Councilmember Cano did not return messages seeking comment.

So, once the police department is gone, and Minneapolis is being policed by packs of taser-toting social workers, who is going to decide which residents deserve “protection” at city expense, and which won’t. While the mayor is typically given a security officer who is also his driver, the council members aren’t afforded similar protections.

Minneapolis mayors have traditionally had a security detail provided by a Minneapolis Police officer who also functions as the mayor’s driver. The thirteen council members are not given the same protection.  
 
Asked why Minneapolis Police are not providing security services to the three council members, a city spokesperson said MPD resources are needed in the community.  The hourly cost of private security is similar to the cost for a police officer, the spokesperson added.
 
A spokesperson for Minneapolis Police told FOX 9 the department does not have any recent police reports of threats against city council members.  It is possible a report could have been filed confidentially.
 
Jenkins said she has not reported the threats to Minneapolis Police because she has been preoccupied with the dual crisis of the “global pandemic and global uprising” over the killing of George Floyd.

Jenkins added that the threats she has received have attacked her over her ethnicity, gender and sexuality.

Andrea Jenkins

Instead of being provided by the city police department (for politicians, optics always come first), the security detail is being provided by two firms, Aegis and BelCom. Fortunately, contracts like these must be approved by the city council, so the same politicians working to dismantle public security protections for ordinary citizens will likely enjoy stepped-up round-the-clock “protection” at taxpayer’s expense. Perhaps, when the councilmembers are ensconced in their chambers, hard at work on some pressing public business, these ‘security agents’ can be ‘repurposed’ to fetch coffee and dry cleaning.