Minneapolis elites are have been upset because the city's police department is and has been a train wreck. They don't seem to mind that it's a racist, dysfunctional train wreck, just that it can't hire "enough" officers. The city has a specific ratio of officers to population required in its charter, and it's below that ratio right now. It seems not enough people want to be cops in the City of Lakes, with its federal consent decree, general bad reputation, and police union run by old-school thumpers.
Meanwhile, crime is going down in Minneapolis, even though there are fewer cops than at any time in the city's history (relative to population). What does that prove?
Just how few cops are there? The Star Tribune created this handy graph the other day, showing the decrease, stability, or increase in number of cops per 1,000 population in major cities, 2019 vs. 2022:
The arrows reflect the amount of decrease or increase for each city, and the light vertical lines indicate calibration at the 2- and 4-per-thousand-marks.
Minneapolis's police numbers were below average to start with, and decreased from about 2 per thousand to 1.4. That's both the largest absolute and percentage drop in the country.
Saint Paul, by comparison, has had a stable number — though its ratio is also below average. It started out just a bit higher than Minneapolis's ratio, but is now obviously higher. Our crime is also falling.
It's almost as if the two facts, number of cops and crime rate, are not related!
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