Cam has championed transforming public safety

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:

3/4/21

Led the effort to address injuries caused by so-called "less lethal" munitions like rubber bullets and and chemical irritants

2/13/21

Supports amending the Charter

Cam publicly supports the petition process to change the Charter to transform public safety, which builds on the work he started in 2018. He also supports the Council-initiated process to change the Charter.

12/7/20

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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)

01/02/19

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.

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.

11/02/18

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.

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.

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.

Repealed racist laws like the "lurking" ordinance

Worked with the NAACP and NOC.

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.