Reimagining Public Safety for Municipal Leaders

For city halls and municipal associations specifically: this is told by someone who ran the meeting, held the press conference, and signed the resolution. Expect the version with the council votes, the union conversations, and the budget lines in it — not the TED-talk abstraction.

Weeks after Daunte Wright's death, Brooklyn Center passed the Daunte Wright and Kobe Dimock-Heisler Community Safety and Violence Prevention Resolution — one of the most ambitious municipal public-safety reforms in the country: an unarmed community-response department, limits on pretextual traffic stops, and a civilian oversight structure.

Mike Elliott walks through what it actually took: the politics of passing it, the machinery of implementing it, the backlash that followed — and an honest accounting of what survived and what didn't after he left office. The act has since been cited by the ACLU, a United Nations report, and a California DOJ RIPA board report.

For cities, universities, and policy audiences trying to move beyond slogans: this is the version that includes the budget lines, the union negotiations, and the election that followed.