A majority-White Minneapolis neighborhood that has embraced the “defund the police” movement has now witnessed three sexual assaults in two weeks as hundreds of homeless people have encamped in the neighborhood’s sprawling park.
The most recent attack occurred Sunday in Powderhorn Park, where the Star-Tribune reported more than 800 people now live in hundreds of tents.
The assault was publicized by the city’s Park and Recreation Board and not by the Minneapolis Police Department, which has been targeted for dissolution by the City Council since George Floyd was killed on Memorial Day by a White police officer.
A Park Board spokeswoman announced that a girl was attacked on July 5, four days after the Board “rejected a plan that could have restricted homeless encampments in parks across the city,” according to local reports.
The girl, whom the Star-Tribune did not name or provide an age, required hospitalization after the attack, which has led to an arrest but no charges as of Tuesday afternoon.
The July 5 sexual assault is the third to occur in the neighborhood, where the number of tents in Powderhorn Park has grown from 415 to 560, according to a Board report Tuesday.
No arrest has been made in the first of the three attacks, which occurred sometime late June 26 or early June 27, the same day a 911 caller reported another attack. In that case, the victim and attacker allegedly knew each other, as a 40-year-old man, Jonathan Taylor, was arrested and charged with groping a woman in their tent that day and raping her on May 22 in a hotel.
But the neighborhood wants no police assistance.
After the Floyd death, its residents voted to call the Minneapolis PD no longer, in an effort to protect people of color from it.
Powderhorn Park was also the site where a veto-proof majority on the City Council declared June 7 that they would vote to “disband” the police department.
Homeless people, who have apparently drifted about Minneapolis since some downtown neighborhoods were badly damaged by riots after Floyd’s death, arrived very quickly and almost immediately drew “heavy car traffic into the neighborhood, some from drug dealers,” according to The New York Times.
In addition to the sexual assaults, some residents in the park’s tent city have overdosed and been taken away by ambulance.
With hostility toward the Minneapolis PD growing, The Times said some residents had resolved to call the local American Indian Movement if “they saw anyone in physical danger.”
“I’m afraid,” longtime progressive resident Shari Albers told The New York Times. “I know my neighbors are around, but I’m not feeling grounded in my city at all. Anything could happen.”
In late June, The Times estimated the park’s population at around 300 multiracial people who “do laundry, listen to music, and strategize about how to find permanent housing.”
The Star-Tribune’s recent report made no mention of the neighborhood’s recent determination to avoid calling the police, but quoted a community organizer as saying assaults “can happen in any park” and that the solution to the problem was more homes.
There appeared to be no mention of the most recent attack at the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board’s website or Facebook page Tuesday.
The Board, which has an annual budget of $111 million and more than 500 full-time employees, declares itself among “the premier park systems in the United States.”
Whites comprise 56% of the neighborhood around the park that has long been noted for left-wing activism. There is also a substantial Black and Hispanic population, according to the website Minnesota Compass.org.
The neighborhood has a median income of $50,824.
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