Police defund
© Twitter/ Ilhan Omar
The majority of the members on the Minneapolis City Council have announced they are ready to commit themselves to getting rid of the city's police department. The idea has become one of the rallying cries of the ongoing protests.

Council President Lisa Bender broke the news during a rally in Minneapolis on Sunday, saying that nine out of the body's 13 members have so far gone on board with the idea. Speaking to CNN, Bender said that the council has yet still to work out a plan how exactly they want to uproot the police department, noting that "the idea of having no police department is certainly not in the short term."

While Bender has provided scant details about the planned changes in the work of the law enforcement, she noted that funds earmarked to police would be funneled to cover other needs.

The rally that saw councilmen and women addressing the crowd featured a giant "DEFUND POLICE" banner propped against the stage. "This city council is going to dismantle this police department," council member Jeremiah Ellison said from the stage, doubling down on his pledge from earlier.

However, another council member Phillipe Cunningham appeared to pour some cold water on the proposal, telling Los Angeles Times reporter Molly O'Toole that there has not been a vote scheduled for the council members to formally weigh in on the idea.

Echoing Bender, he said that the Minneapolis Police Department "will not be abolished tomorrow," adding that the overhaul might lead to "potential budget cuts."

The announcement has immediately drawn praise from Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar, herself a vocal proponent of disbanding the local police force, who, however, downplayed the controversial plan as "reimaging policing."

While the idea to either upend the police force entirely or drastically reduce its funding has been gaining traction on the back of the George Floyd protests, many have grown skeptical about the concept, sounding alarm that the proposal to replace them with "community-led system" might lead to ultimate chaos that would hit most vulnerable communities, the hardest.