Activists Demand Accountability for Private Security

Racial Reckoning: The Arc of Justice

Minneapolis community members say a private security team in Uptown has seriously injured 3 people. They say they're concerned the city is effectively outsourcing policing to private military contractors.

Feven Gerezgiher reports:

At a press conference Tuesday, community members said a private security team in Uptown has seriously injured 3 people. One person is alleged to have a traumatic brain injury. They said many were targeted when asking questions about an assault by the team last week.

A video from last Thursday shows one of the private security members pushing and detaining an activist who goes by the name Comrade Link.

Activists believe the private security firm is an entity called the Conflict Resolution Group. According to its website, the group uses techniques learned and honed on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. The activists say the security firm is protecting Seven Points, formerly Calhoun Square in Uptown, which has become another site for protests for police accountability.

The Legal Rights Center’s Andrew Gordon opposes the use of private military contractors in Uptown.

“There has been a chilling impact on individuals and their willingness to go into the Uptown space to hold it, to protest, when they know that they may be subject to brutality and assault, and that the individuals who are doing those things are largely unaccountable,” he said.

Seven Points property owners and the City of Minneapolis have yet to answer community questions about the private security team and its relationship to the Minneapolis Police Department. Gordon said he is concerned the MPD is essentially outsourcing policing.

“They are being heavily scrutinized by a number of different individuals, including the courts, including the DOJ,” said Gordon. “And they've effectively said, ‘our response to that scrutiny is to ask other people to do our job for us.’”

The city has yet to respond to a data request regarding its relationship to the Conflict Resolution Group.