By Katrina Pross | Sahan Journal

This story comes to you from Sahan Journal through a partnership with MPR News.

Nearly four years after it was damaged during protests in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, the building that housed the Minneapolis police’s Third Precinct still stands empty, charred, and barricaded. 

The city decided last year that police would not return to the site at 3000 Minnehaha Ave. Instead, the city plans to open the South Minneapolis Community Safety Center half of a mile up the street, at 2633 Minnehaha Ave. The center will include the new Third Precinct headquarters and community-based services under one roof.

But some community members who live and work in the area say police and community services shouldn’t exist in the same building. They say they’re frustrated because there is a lack of community involvement in the city’s decision making.

“People who don’t identify with those [police] institutions will not come in, and the people who don’t identify with those institutions are probably the people who need the services the most, and are the ones who have been hurt by those institutions,” said Duaba Unenra.

Unenra is co-founder of Confluence: An East Lake Studio for Community Design, an organization that supports diverse development of the area around the Third Precinct. 

City leaders say they plan to offer more community engagement opportunities as they prepare to open the new center. The city also plans to open the smaller, temporary Lake Street Community Safety Center this summer, which won’t have a permanent police presence. 

Plans for new site

The city is scheduled to close on the purchase of the new site and building by June 1. It’s estimated to cost more than $20 million to acquire the site and modify the existing building.

The center is slated to open in early 2025. Amanda Harrington, director of design and implementation for the city’s Office of Community Safety, said the city has had community safety centers in the past that were small or temporary “storefront” spaces. The city has never had a community safety center and a police precinct in the same building. Harrington said that setup will allow community-based services to better engage with law enforcement.

City workgroups are meeting to create a plan for what the center will look like and what services it will feature. The city hasn’t decided what services the center will include, she said, but they could relate to affordable housing, addiction, economic support, and mental health. Harrington said the city wants input from community members about the services that should be prioritized. 

The Minneapolis City Council approved the creation of the South Minneapolis Community Safety Center in November. Council Member Robin Wonsley subsequently drafted a legislative directive ordering the city to create a concrete plan for what the center would look like before the purchase is completed. 

Community Safety Commissioner Todd Barnette updated the council’s Public Health and Safety Committee in January about the city’s progress on the plan. But Wonsley expressed concern that a detailed plan isn’t in place even though the June deadline is on the horizon.

“Are we setting ourselves up for mismanaging the public dollars by purchasing this building with no robust plan for public safety?” Wonsley said in a recent interview with Sahan Journal.

Harrington said the city plans to involve the community in the planning process. The city announced a little over a week ago that residents near the Third Precinct and those who have been impacted by the criminal justice system can expect to see more community engagement over the next three months. 

The city posts updates and community engagement information online for the South Minneapolis Community Safety Center and the Lake Street Community Safety Center. 

City leaders and residents agree that there hasn’t been enough community engagement in the past regarding the Third Precinct.

“There just hasn’t been a lot of information, and in the absence of us putting out information, people are just going to have to guess at what’s happening,” Harrington said.

City Council Member Jason Chavez, who represents Ward 9 where the Third Precinct is located, said past city engagement didn’t give residents much of a choice. He hopes that will change. 

“I’m hopeful that the Office of Community Safety is going to take the feedback seriously and work to improve the engagement,” he said. 

But many community members say they aren’t optimistic that the city will take their opinions into consideration.

“They have failed repeatedly to take community’s opinion in any meaningful way,” said Rachel Boeke, executive director of the Longfellow Community Council.

Police and community resources under one roof?

City officials say that having community services and police in the South Minneapolis Community Safety Center will prevent resources from being separated from one another, and will create a better public safety ecosystem.

Some community members say that people who don’t trust the police or have been mistreated by them may not feel comfortable seeking services or community resources in a building occupied by police. 

“Trying to have some kind of community services center in a building where the police are based, to me, is just really wrongheaded,” said Jamie Schwesnedl who owns Moon Palace Books, a bookstore near the old Third Precinct building.

Schwesnedl is also a board member of Longfellow Rising, a group of business owners in the neighborhood that came together following the civil unrest after Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police in 2020. Schwesnedl said money for public safety programming and resources should go to community groups, like mosques or schools, that are not affiliated with the police or the city. 

City officials say the Lake Street Community Safety Center could be an alternative for residents who don’t want to seek services at the South Minneapolis Community Safety Center because of the permanent police presence. The Lake Street center is scheduled to open this summer, and the city has identified a potential building for it. While police might have “office hours” at the center from time to time, there won’t be a full-time police presence, city officials say.

Ayanna Muata is also a board member of Longfellow Rising, and has lived in the neighborhood for about 30 years. She said she isn’t necessarily opposed to the idea of police and community services coexisting in the same building, but said it’s essential that the city evaluates how the arrangement is working, and modify it if needed.

“What happens a lot of times when we talk about community engagement, it’s transactional,” Muata said. “It’s a survey. It’s a meeting, right? Or a series of a handful of meetings. But to me, real community engagement is your relationship with community. That means it doesn’t end, you’re always tapped in somehow.”

Harrington said she understands that some community members may not want police in the building.

“We have a really diverse community in Minneapolis, and we have people on both ends of that spectrum and a lot of people in the middle, and we need to provide services to every single one of them,” Harrington said. “We’ll end up with something that hopefully everyone feels safe in that space, and I’d recognize that not everybody is going to be happy with every single detail of it.”

What happens with the old building?

There has also been significant discussion about what should happen to the old Third Precinct building. Several community groups have held their own meetings to invite public feedback on how to redevelop the space.

Some community members want to turn the site into a Black Cultural Center. But City Council members have said the city intends to turn most of the building into a voter services center while reserving 25 percent of the space for the community. City Council members are expected to receive more details about that plan later this month.

The Longfellow Community Council released a report earlier this year showing that 94 percent of community members who provided feedback wanted the building put toward community use. Only 6 percent wanted it returned to police use, or to be converted into a voter services center. 

“Based on our small sampling, the community feels their opinions aren’t heard, considered, or acted upon by the City,” the report reads. “The community would like a true engagement effort to be conducted and for the feedback from that engagement determine what happens at 3000 Minnehaha Ave.”

Community members and some city leaders say they didn’t hear from anyone at public engagement meetings and events that they wanted a voter services center.

“I had never heard anyone in the city say they wanted a voter services center,” Schwesnedl said. “It just seems so random.” 

Community members say it’s unacceptable that the building continues to stand empty and damaged after nearly four years since the unrest.

“It’s an absolute blight,” Boeke said. “I mean, it looks like a war situation. And there’s numerous people who say they avoid that area constantly because they get PTSD flashbacks and reminders.”

Schwesndl said he has to keep in compliance with city codes and regulations as a business owner, so it’s disappointing to see the building still standing behind fencing and concrete barriers.

“It’s a target for everyone’s frustrations,” he said, “and it’s a symbol of failure.”

Collected from Minnesota Public Radio News. View original source here.