[MCN] Fwd: Re: George Floyd

Fri May 29 23:13:10 EDT 2020

-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject: 	Re: [bozone-orgs] George Floyd
Date: 	Fri, 29 May 2020 19:21:07 -0600
From: 	Jackie Wilson via bozone-orgs list <bozone-orgs at npogroups.org>
Reply-To: 	drjdubs at gmail.com
To: 	ericnoyes01 at gmail.com
CC: 	bozone-orgs at npogroups.org

Thanks for sending this, Eric.

> On May 29, 2020, at 8:43 AM, GMAIL - Eric Noyes via bozone-orgs list 
> <bozone-orgs at npogroups.org <mailto:bozone-orgs at npogroups.org>> wrote:
>
> Here is a response from American Indian leaders in Minneapolis
>
> 	
>
>
>   Metropolitan Urban Indian Directors Group letter to Minneapolis
>   Police regarding George Floyd
>
>
>
>
> May 27th, 2020
>
> To All Our Relations —
>
> This letter has been written on behalf of the Metropolitan Urban 
> Indian Directors Group (MUID) – a collaborative of some thirty 
> American Indian organizations operating within the Twin Cities 
> metropolitan area of Minnesota (please see the attached organizational 
> listing). The purpose of this communication is to state our collective 
> response to the tragic death of George Floyd on Monday, May 25th, 2020.
>
> In no uncertain terms, the membership of this collaborative strongly 
> condemns the murder of one of our fellow citizens, at the hands of the 
> Minneapolis Police Department. Furthermore, Metropolitan Urban Indian 
> Directors Group condemns the ongoing and systemic racist ideologies 
> that continue to run strongly through the department like a virulent 
> and lethal pathogen. This disease of spirit is actively polluting the 
> minds of some of the rank and file to the point where they are no 
> longer able to perform their tax payer funded jobs with any degree of 
> professionalism, or with any legitimate capacity to restrain 
> themselves from brutalizing and murdering fellow human beings. To this 
> we collectively and loudly proclaim NO MORE.
>
> The murder of George Floyd was an unmitigated and horrific tragedy 
> that has brought shame onto our community. Without question, it was a 
> complete failure of any form of moral decency or the most basic 
> expressions of humanity by officers who have taken an oath to “serve 
> and protect”. The eyes of the world are now upon us. How we come 
> together to permanently rectify this situation and prevent it from 
> happening again is now paramount. However, we must first acknowledge 
> that this unspeakable act of evil is not new, that in fact it is a 
> recurring problem suggestive of a deeper systemic sickness.
>
> The Minneapolis Police Department has a long history violence against 
> indigenous people and people of color. The American Indian Movement 
> was founded in Minneapolis in 1968 as a direct response to unchecked 
> brutality being perpetrated by the Minneapolis Police Department upon 
> our community members. In 1992, two members of our community were 
> forcibly constrained into the trunk of a Minneapolis Police Cruiser. 
> In 2008, the officer who killed George Floyd, Officer Chauvin shot and 
> wounded an individual during a domestic violence call, and then again 
> in 2011, Officer Chauvin shot and injured a man at Little Earth. In 
> 2015 Jamar Clark was murdered at the hands of the Minneapolis Police 
> Department. Sadly these are just some examples of many such incidents.
>
> Still, in 2020, the Minneapolis Police Department are openly murdering 
> black and brown people in broad daylight without hesitation, and 
> without any concern from the open shouts of local bystanders who 
> pleaded for the life of Mr. Floyd – who were in essence pleading for 
> the lost humanity that had apparently vacated the four responding 
> officers. And these are only the most high profile symptoms of the 
> spirit of hate and racism in our police department. There have been so 
> many more instances that while not making the papers, left undeniable 
> scars on our people. No more. We demand action and improvement, 
> nothing less.
>
> We reject outright as false the defense of the Minneapolis Police 
> Department that contends that the actions of a handful of depraved 
> individuals cannot overshadow the department as a whole. Any attempt 
> at minimizing such pervasive sickness by localizing it to a “problem 
> few” is in actuality a demonstration of willful ignorance, and perhaps 
> an act of complicity. It minimizes the scourge of lethality that these 
> “few” repeatedly wield upon our people. Moreover, it neglects the fact 
> that the Minneapolis Police Department provided the very context 
> within which these attitudes were developed and potentially cultivated 
> into full maturation. The department itself was either too inept to 
> detect these sick individuals before they were given free rein to 
> commit atrocious acts of murder in broad daylight, or worse yet, the 
> department actively fostered and endorsed these attitudes and then 
> turned them loose onto the public.
>
> As has been established within the public record, two of the 
> terminated officers involved in the murder of Mr. Floyd have already 
> been involved in numerous previous shootings of civilians, as well as 
> stood accused within previous police brutality lawsuits that were 
> eventually settled out of court. This demonstrates a clear pattern of 
> behavior either endorsed by the Minneapolis Police Department, or a 
> chronic and severe negligence by the department to root out and remove 
> such dangerous and sick individuals from further service. Either way, 
> all indicators of contact tracing points towards the Minneapolis 
> Police Department as the very source point for this infection that 
> continues to spread and kill.
>
> The Minnesota State Attorney General Keith Ellison praised the 
> immediate termination of the assailants responsible for the murder of 
> Mr. Floyd, explaining that the move as necessary “to clean the wound”. 
> We agree with the Attorney General’s characterization that the 
> perpetrators represent a dangerous bacterium that left untreated, will 
> continue to infect the society as a whole. The time is now to make 
> wholesale and discernable changes to the department lest we all 
> succumb to the death that continues to seep out of local precincts 
> onto our streets, and into our homes.
>
> The membership of Metropolitan Urban Indian Directors Group stands in 
> support of the recent actions and words taken by Minneapolis Mayor 
> Jacob Frey, but strongly urge further, demonstrable actions to be 
> undertaken.
> Metropolitan Urban Indian Directors Group calls on the swift and 
> vigorous prosecution of the four offending (and now terminated) 
> officers complicit in this murder to the fullest extent of the law.
> Metropolitan Urban Indian Directors Group stands with the African 
> American community, and all other communities regularly target for 
> violence by the Minneapolis Police Department.
>
> We believe that this department wide sickness emanates directly from 
> leadership — specifically the President of the Minneapolis Police 
> Federation. Mr. Bob Kroll has a long history of bigoted and ignorant 
> remarks in the press, and public displays of allegiances with known 
> purveyors of racism. Mr. Kroll has repeatedly and openly propagated 
> racist ideology within the public sphere while serving on the 
> Minneapolis Police force. The vitriol emanating from the words of Mr. 
> Kroll are the very same ideology represented within the infected minds 
> of the responding officers who murdered George Floyd, and for all the 
> others who have brutalized black and brown people with impunity while 
> wearing a badge. We therefore also call on the immediate termination 
> of Bob Kroll from the Minneapolis Police Department. By retaining his 
> position amongst the force, Mr. Kroll is able to retain his position 
> as the union lead. This by its very nature serves as a powerful 
> signifier to those “problem few” within the Minneapolis Police 
> Department that they have a benefactor in a position of authority, and 
> by virtue of his position, will protect them at all costs, no matter 
> how villainous or lethal their exploits become on the streets of 
> Minneapolis against the very citizens they have pledged to protect.
>
> Metropolitan Urban Indian Directors Group demands these 
> recommendations will be implemented without delay. Metropolitan Urban 
> Indian Directors Group also demands that more strategies will need to 
> be developed and implemented to properly protect black and brown 
> people from its own police force that it subsidizes.
>
> Great strides have been made in recent years under the leadership of 
> Minneapolis Chief of Police Medaria "Rondo" Arradondo to bolster a 
> more positive relationship between the Minneapolis Police Department 
> and the Urban American Indian community. Metropolitan Urban Indian 
> Directors Group and our community appreciate the positive, long-term 
> partnerships and relationship within the Minneapolis Police 
> Department, especially in the 3rd Precinct. Metropolitan Urban Indian 
> Directors Group stands ready to work with Chief Arradondo and his 
> officers to create positive, sustainable, systemic change with 
> the Minneapolis Police Department.
>
> Additionally, Metropolitan Urban Indian Directors Group will continue 
> to engage with the Native community, and with all stakeholders to 
> create a collaborative and sustained efforts to combat these very 
> serious issues now gravely impacting the Minneapolis American Indian 
> population.
> Let us start to heal. Let us move forward in peace and harmony. Let us 
> see what we can create together.
>
> “/I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about 
> beneath me was the whole hoop of the world./
> /And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood 
> more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all 
> things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live 
> together like one being./
> /And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops 
> that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the 
> center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all children of one 
> mother and one father./
> /And I saw that it was holy.”/
> /- Black Elk, Oglala Lakota (1863-1950)/
>
> Wopila Tanka, and Chii Miigwetch
>
> Contacts:
> *Robert Lilligren *– President and CEO of Native American Community 
> Development Center (NACDI) / Chair of Metropolitan Urban Indian 
> Directors Group rlilligren at nacdi.org <mailto:rlilligren at nacdi.org>
> *Mary LaGarde* – Executive Director – Minneapolis American Indian 
> Center (MAIC)/ Vice Chair of Metropolitan Urban Indian Directors Group 
> mlargarde at maicnet.org <mailto:mlargarde at maicnet.org>
> *Dr. Joe Hobot* – President and CEO – American Indian OIC (AIOIC) 
> /Letter Authorjoeh at aioic.org <mailto:joeh at aioic.org>
> *Metropolitan Urban Indian Directors Website:* www.muidmn.org 
> <http://report.mnb.email/t.js?s=5ed091d8509b8d342b71228a&u=42986440&v=3&key=80ab&skey=35ddcd3bd4&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.muidmn.org%2F> 
>
> /Listing of Voting Member Organizations within the Metropolitan Urban 
> Indian Directors Group:/
> 1. All Nations Indian Church
> Marelene Heglemo - Pastor
> 2. American Indian Community and Development Corporation
> Michael Goze, CEO
> 3. American Indian Movement Interpretive Center
> Clyde Bellecourt – President and CEO
> 4. American Indian OIC
> Dr. Joe Hobot - President & CEO
> 5. The Circle Newspaper
> Cat Whipple – Managing Editor
> 6. Division of Indian Work
> Louise Matson- Executive Director
> 7. Dream of Wild Health
> Neely Snyder - Executive Director
> 8. Indian Health Board
> Dr. Patrick Rock - President & CEO
> 9. Indigenous Peoples Task Force
> Sharon Day- Executive Director
> 10. Little Earth of United Tribes (LERA)
> Jessica Rousseau- Executive Director
> 11. MIGIZI
> Kelly Drummer – President & CEO
> 12. Minneapolis American Indian Center
> Mary LaGarde - Executive Director
> 13. Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center
> David Nicholson – Interim President & CEO
> 14. Mni Sota Fund
> Kit Fordham – President & CEO
> 15. Native American Community Clinic
> Dr. Antony Stately - CEO
> 16. Native American Community Development Institute
> Robert Lilligren – President & CEO
> 17. Nawayee Center School
> Joe Rice – Executive Director
> 18. New Native Theater
> Rhiana Yazzie - Artistic Director
> 19. Upper Midwest American Indian Center
> Gertrude Buckanaga – Executive Director
> /Listing of Ex-Officio Member Organizations within the Metropolitan 
> Urban Indian Directors Group:/
> 1. Bois Forte Urban Office
> 2. City of Minneapolis – American Indian Community Specialist
> 3. Fond Du Lac Urban Office
> 4. Hennepin County Medical Center – American Indian Advocate
> 5. Leech Lake Twin Cities Office
> 6. Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe Urban Office
> 7. Minneapolis Public Schools – Department of Indian Education
> 8. Minnesota American Indian Chamber of Commerce
> 9. Red Lake Twin Cities Embassy
> 10. White Earth Nation Urban Office
>
> ###
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