DOJ asks for community input ahead of MPD consent decree

By H. Jiahong Pan Contributing Writer

n the social hall of New Beginnings Baptist Ministries, located at the southeast corner of 1st Avenue and 43rd Street in South Minneapolis, Northsider Anita Urvita-Davis, who was born in the U.S., recalled how in the late 1990s a Minneapolis police officer asked her for papers in Spanish.

“The police officer at the corner, waiting to turn, looks at me out his open window and says, ‘Buenos tardes [Good afternoon].’ I looked at him and I said, ‘Buenos tardes,’” recalls Urvina-Davis. The officer then asked, in Spanish, if she spoke English. “Si,” she told the officers. “Then he said ‘Tiene papeles? Do you have papers?’ I was taken aback and I said in English ‘What?’”

Despite Urvita-Davis, who is a member of the Unity Community Mediation Team, being hurt by how she was treated, she still thinks we need police. She believes they just need to be more sensitive. She joined a committee of eight community members from the African immigrant, African American and Native American communities, all members of the UCMT, who met with the U.S. Department of Justice last Thursday morning to provide feedback on what a Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) consent decree should address.

During the U.S. Department of Justice’s two-year investigation into the MPD, they found the department engaged in discriminatory, often reckless

■ See DOJ on page 5