Minneapolis Couple Sues City, Mayor for Failing to Protect Streets

A Minneapolis couple is suing the city and mayor for failing to protect and watch over its streets, the Daily Mail reported Monday.

Residents Don and Sondra Samuels told the outlet the rise in crime is what pushed them and six others to sue the city and Mayor Jacob Frey for not protecting the area.

Former City Council member, Don, 72, said he and his wife watched the chaos after George Floyd’s death with increasing concern.

“We were pretty frightened and disturbed by the disrespect of the police and the institution of policing,” Don noted.

“We know there are problems for sure, but when they burned down the Third Precinct, for us a new watermark had been reached and it was putting our safety at risk,” he added.

Sondra, 55, who is president and CEO of Northside Achievement Zone, said, “After that, the violence just started to swell – gunshots all the time, so many stories of people getting shot.”

“We need to reform policing and police, but we need an ‘and/both’ approach not an ‘either/or,'” she commented.

In May, a Minneapolis man whose six-year-old granddaughter was killed by a stray bullet rejected calls to defund the police.

K.G. Wilson said defunding law enforcement “is the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“I can tell you this, if I was a criminal, I would support it,” he explained, adding, “I would love it.”

In regard to the crime in Minneapolis, Sondra told the Mail, “So, we feel like we’re under siege and then we turn on CNN and we see nine of our 13 council people standing on a stage that has a big, ‘Defund’ sign in front of it, taking a pledge to do away with police.”

The Minneapolis City Council voted in February to spend $6.4 million to hire dozens of officers while some council members and activists worked to replace the department.

“The council voted unanimously on Friday to approve the additional funding, which was requested by police. The department says it only has 638 officers available to work, roughly 200 fewer than usual,” the Associated Press (AP) reported at the time.