Leading the fight to:
Invest in public safety services outside of policing
- Mobile mental health crisis teams, connected to 911 but separate from police
- Citywide ambassadors, modeled on the Downtown Improvement District ambassadors
- Addiction and overdose response outside of law enforcement
- Traffic crash investigations
- Crime Prevention Specialists
- Building neighborhood safety through connections between neighbors
Amend the Charter
- Make our approach to public safety broader and more holistic than just policing, with a new department of Community Safety and Violence Prevention
- Remove the requirement for a minimum number of officers
- Give the Council and mayor equal power over the police, like all other departments
Focus on prevention
- Reduce violence through proven public health approaches
- Invest in people's well-being through housing, jobs, treatment and more
Hold police officers accountable
- Strengthen the police oversight ordinance
- Put residents, not police, in charge of police oversight
- Require a year of service prior to becoming an officer
- Institute mandatory implicit bias testing for new hires
Reduce the power of the Police Federation
- Shut off the flow of money for off-duty work
- Fight for a better contract
Demilitarize the police
- Ban rubber bullets and chemical weapons
- Eliminate military-style weapons
Working hand-in-hand with social movements to make real change:
Co-authored the Safety for All Budget
This proposal created Mobile Mental Health Crisis Teams to respond to mental health calls instead of police, invested in violence prevention, and increased funding to hold police accountable
Read more: City of Minneapolis
Advocating for new, non-police mental health response
During ongoing budget discussions, Cam is advocating for concrete steps to establish a new public safety model, including the Safety for All proposal which would move $8 million out of the Police budget, in the process creating a new 24/7 mental health response service, increasing resources for violence prevention/intervention, and moving more operations out of MPD to more appropriate departments.
Read more: Twitter
Spoke out against the "kettling" of over 600 protesters on I-94
After police trapped hundreds of protestors on the freeway for hours, Cam called for all charges against them to be dropped.
Read more: MN Reformer
Moved services from the police department to other City departments, secured Ward 2 funding
Property crime reporting (moved to 311) and Communications (moved to the Coordinator’s office). Secured funds for youth outreach workers in Seward and the West Bank
Read more: Southwest Journal
Outreach services for people experiencing homelessness
A roughly $8 million funding package to expand shelter capacity for three new shelters for people experiencing homelessness in Minneapolis
Read more: City announcement
Co-authored the 2020 proposal to change the city charter
Cam co-authored and advocated for the proposal to begin transforming public safety by creating a new department of Department of Community Safety and Violence Prevention, giving City Council policymaking authority over it (which he proposed two years prior), and eliminating a charter requirement for a minimum number of police. This was ultimately - and unjustly - blocked for 2020 by an abuse of procedure by the Charter Commission.
Read more: Star Tribune
Worked with Reclaim the Block and Black Visions Collective to start the work of transforming community safety in Minneapolis
When the political mainstream was forced to acknowledge the deep need to transform public safety. Cam wholeheartedly engaged with grassroots advocates to shape a commitment to that work.
Read more: City Council Resolution (PDF)
Funded the mental health co-responder pilot
Cam supported efforts to ensure that, when police respond to a report of someone who may be suffering from symptoms of mental illness, a mental health worker is also present.
Read more: MinnPost
Created the Office of Violence Prevention
Worked with colleagues to create and fund the Office of Violence Prevention, establishing an institutional home for violence prevention efforts.
Read more:
Authored a demand to protect any undocumented people in Hennepin County jail
Cam co-authored a resolution directing that the city contract ensure reforms in the Hennepin County jail to better protect undocumented residents and avoid collaboration with ICE.
Read more: City Resolution (PDF)
Began the effort to amend the Charter to transform public safety
Two years before a council majority caught up in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, Cam led the charge to change the City Charter to allow the City Council to hold police accountable.
Read more: MPR
Stopped MPD from pushing for evictions
Worked with colleagues and renters advocates to reform the conduct on premise ordinance to stop MPD from pushing for evictions.
Read more: Star Tribune
Led the effort to redefine violence as a public health crisis
From the beginning of his work in City Hall, Cam pushed the city to think of safety not as a problem of criminals and police, but of public health.
Read more: MN Daily