"It was June 6, less than two weeks after the murder of George Floyd, and Frey had emerged to talk to a crowd that had gathered near his home. In the video, he seems small and almost boyish in his baseball shirt and "I CAN'T BREATHE" mask, his shoulders somewhat slumped, unheard over the fury of the crowd. A woman speaking with a microphone asks Frey if he will commit to defunding the police department."
""It's important that we hear this," she says. "Because if y'all don't know, he's up for reelection next year. And if he says no, guess what the fuck we're going to do next year?" After Frey responds, saying in a muffled voice that he does not support the full abolition of the police, the protesters shout him down, and he is driven out of the crowd with chants of "Go home, Jacob, go home!" and "Shame! Shame!""
"For a man once considered a darling of the Democratic Party, it was a remarkable moment, and one that seemed indicative of just how seismically the party's politics had shifted. It seemed hard to imagine, in that moment, that Frey could bounce back. And yet, this week, Frey is headed toward his second election since then, with more power in the city than ever before, that display of public scorn a distant memory."
Jacob Frey faced a hostile public confrontation on June 6, less than two weeks after George Floyd's murder, when protesters demanded a commitment to defund the police. Frey appeared small and muffled in a baseball shirt and an "I CAN'T BREATHE" mask, and his refusal to support full police abolition prompted chants driving him from the crowd. The episode signaled a sharp shift in local Democratic politics and intense public anger. Despite that public scorn, Frey later regained political standing and is positioned for a second mayoral term with increased authority in Minneapolis. National political currents since the killing have moved toward conservative backlash and reduced momentum for revolutionary racial justice.
Read at Slate Magazine
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