Reporting from the Star Tribune shows that Mayor Frey is deleting his calls and texts. The Mayor has no cell phone calls or text data from the ICE action in Minneapolis on June 3rd. He also has none from the days after Davis Moturi was shot by his neighbor John Sawchak. His office claims that these communications were not necessary to keep.
But if these kinds of communications can be deleted, what does Jacob Frey think needs to be saved?
The City has guardrails in place to ensure transparency, so that the public can see how elected officials are representing the best interests of Minneapolis residents. It certainly appears as though Mayor Frey has found a way to skirt those guardrails, in order to shield himself from accountability, and he is possibly thwarting the law in order to do so.
“I think he is breaking the law.”
- Don Gemberling, board member of Minnesotans for Open Government
“The contortions they appear to be prepared to go through to circumvent the spirit of the (law’s) presumption of openness are astounding.”
- Jane Kirtley, professor of law and media ethics at the University of Minnesota
Matt Ehling, a board member of Minnesotans for Open Government, said “the city ‘has played fast and loose’ with the open records law, turning over documents ‘when it benefits them.’”
Eight years later and we are no better off.
Our neighbors need homes, not fences and bulldozers.
It’s time to turn the page on Jacob Frey and elect a mayor who will invest the resources needed to make sure everyone in Minneapolis has a stable home.
“Mayor Frey has minimized the scale of unsheltered homelessness, and has stated only 27 people were unhoused in Minneapolis. In reality, Hennepin County data confirmed 427 at the beginning of this year, with the vast majority located within Minneapolis.”
- Hennepin County Commissioner Irene Fernando [1]
To make matters worse, the officer who shot and killed 22-year-old Amir Locke was put in charge of use-of-force training for all of MPD.
It wasn’t until there was public outcry over this news that Mayor Frey and MPD reversed course. Without the public backlash, Mayor Frey's MPD would have continued to operate in the shadows, promoting officers who have killed our neighbors.
“Anybody that stands behind Mark Hanneman becoming a trainer for other officers, they are going to continue to have the bloodshed of my baby boy, Amir Locke, on their watch, on their hands.”
- Karen Wells, Amir Locke’s mother [2]
Davis Moturi called 911 dozens of times for over a year to ask for help. His pleas for help went unanswered and his neighbor shot him in the neck while he was doing yardwork.
Months before the shooting, Moturi’s neighbor John Sawchak “was charged with threats of violence — his first felony — after leaving feces in the Moturis’ yard and threatening (Moturi) with a 6-inch knife, announcing: ‘I should have killed you last night.’” Despite all this and multiple warrants, MPD failed to act. [3]
