Every Map Is the Same Map: ShotSpotter Edition
A leaked map of gunshot detection systems in Minneapolis looks disappointingly similar to other city maps, and demonstrates familiar systemic biases.
Category: Police
‘Grateful’: Hudson Bicyclist Continues Recovery, After Hit-and-Run
Barbara Espy relied on her electric bike to get around Hudson, Wisconsin. Road rage took her bike — but the community gave back her life.
Transit Is in Trouble: Can We Expect Anyone to Come Help?
When your experience of riding the light-rail doesn’t mesh with the long-term solutions being proposed, what do you do? Speak up!
Book Club: The City & the City
Join Elissa Schufman and Ruby Levine for a discussion of the novel The City & the City by China Miéville. It starts off as a murder mystery police procedural, but the themes go much deeper than that.
A Look Back at a Kid’s View of Williams Hill
Wolfie rides a bike tour of the historic Williams Hill area in St. Paul, MN.
The Sound of the Police
Excerpt from Sparked: George Floyd, Racism and the Progressive Illusion edited by Walter R. Jacobs, Wendy Thompson Taiwo and Amy August. Reproduced with permission from the Minnesota Historical Society Press. On June 12, 2020, the Minneapolis City Council voted unanimously to disband the police department and replace it with another model, an extraordinary step. Like most white, […]
Barbed Wire and Barricades
We saw the streets of Minneapolis, and the whole country, become militarized last summer as peaceful protests were met with weapons of war by police. Now militarization is occurring again, this time through fences, concrete barriers, and barbed wire that seek to cut residents off from street spaces. For the community to heal and stay […]
Abolish the Police Car
Until we can change the city charter, we must pay the salaries of about 730 police officers. However, nowhere in there does it specify what is necessary equipment for the officers to have. I will argue here that police cars are not only unnecessary but also actively harmful, and should no longer be funded by […]
Can Metro Transit Fix Policing?
It probably seems like years ago. But, in actual time, it’s only been four months since February 2020. That’s when the Minnesota Legislature began debating a policy to change policing on Metro Transit trains and buses. At the time, the debate centered around a “law and order” narrative. Everyone at the capitol seemed to agree […]
The New(er) Mall of America Station: A Temporary Solution
Most of my trips to the Mall of America aren’t to the actual mall but rather to the transit station for getting on a bus or train. For over half a year, however, I’ve made an effort to avoid using Mall of America Station, going so far as to walk from 28th Avenue Station to […]