Great news out of Minneapolis, you can no longer go to jail just for spitting on the street! Yes, this was actually a codified ordinance along with lurking. Excitingly, the Minneapolis City Council voted to repeal both the spitting and lurking ordinances on June 5.
While the spitting law was rarely enforced, lurking was enforced more often, as around 200 tickets have been issued since 2012.
Even though ordinances such as these seem like minor offenses with minor punishments, their impacts are undeniable. Truth – a man once spent 90 days in the workhouse for spitting! Communities of color in Minneapolis have often become criminalized as a result of normal, human behavior and these two ordinances are just examples of a larger trend.
In case you are wondering what the heck lurking even is, the lurking ordinance stated: “No person, in any public or private place, shall lurk, lie in wait or be concealed with intent to commit any crime or unlawful act”. That is all the context that was offered in the language, which by default means that police were supposed to determine what someone’s “intent” was just by looking at them. Judging based solely on appearance is incredibly problematic because of so many reasons- including but not limited to the broad license this clause provides to police officers. We know from the report we released in May, Picking Up the Pieces, that Blacks and Native Americans are over policed for low-level crimes - lurking was no different. The majority of people arrested for lurking in the last few years were Black, even though Blacks make up only 19% of Minneapolis’ population.
The ACLU worked on this repeal along with our allies at Neighborhoods Organizing for Change, Black Lives Matter, NAACP and the Coalition for Critical Change among others. The repeal of these two ordinances is a big step in the right direction, but repealing ordinances alone won’t solve all of the problems that we know still plague the fair city of Minneapolis.
Council members Cam Gordon and Blong Yang were at the helm of the repeal effort. With their leadership, the ordinances were repealed by a 12 to 1 vote. Clearly, the vast majority of the City Council recognized the importance in making our criminal justice system a little more equitable, and we are confident that the City Council will progress on our other recommendations.
Council President Barb Johnson was the only member to vote against the repeal, though not before providing a source of great amusement to the listening crowd when she accidentally voted in favor of the repeal, only to retract her slip-up amongst loud laughter. President Johnson argued extensively and vehemently that out of concern for problems of crime in her ward, she wished the lurking law to remain in place. She then expressed her fear that the repeal of the two ordinances being discussed was only the first step, employing slippery slope rhetoric that would result in Minneapolis being less safe.
Council President Johnson is right about one thing, at least. She is correct in saying that this is only the first step. The repeal of the spitting and lurking ordinances is a small victory in a larger struggle against a policing system which disproportionately criminalizes people of color. We know that it is possible to make Minneapolis better for everyone, and if we all work together we can make it happen! You can help us keep the ball rolling by signing our petition calling on Minneapolis Government Leaders to keep the momentum going and pass more reforms in Minneapolis.