Several community members say plans to house the police’s new Third Precinct offices with community services will alienate people who don’t trust law enforcement.
This special audio report from YES! and Public News Service explores the ways communities affected by police violence are organizing to keep each other safe, in Minneapolis and beyond.
When unrest in Minneapolis spread to the city’s Longfellow neighborhood last year, Ruhel Islam opened his restaurant, Gandhi Mahal, for medics to treat injured protesters. The next night, rioters set fire to the police building and dozens of businesses in Longfellow, and by dawn, his restaurant lay in ashes.
In a Facebook post that went viral the same morning, his teenage daughter, Hafsa, quoted him as saying, “Let my building burn, justice needs to be served, put those officers in jail.”
His words resonate a year later as more than an expression of forgiveness. Mr. Islam has helped form a neighborhood collective called Longfellow Rising that intends to rebuild the triangular, three-block zone that included Gandhi Mahal to further elevate – and celebrate – the neighborhood’s racial, ethnic, and cultural diversity.