MINNEAPOLIS — Minneapolis leaders are trying to decide whether to build a $38 million public safety training center, but much of the debate this week devolved into whether the project was akin to Atlanta’s controversial “Cop City.”

Atlanta’s public safety center was given its nickname as it sparked protests and national headlines in 2023 after dozens of chaotic clashes and the fatal shooting of a protester.

Opponents of a new Minneapolis training center have repeatedly invoked the nickname for a proposed community safety training and wellness center that Mayor Jacob Frey’s administration wants to build in an industrial area in the Windom neighborhood of southwest Minneapolis.

On Thursday, March 26, the City Council voted 7-6 to send the proposal back to staff for more work. The result disappointed those who wanted to kill the plan — but doesn’t guarantee it will proceed either.

Much of a City Council committee meeting on Tuesday was spent debating whether or not it was fair to call the project Cop City:

Council member Linea Palmisano said, “Some of the arguments I’ve heard against this investment are downright disingenuous. One: This isn’t a Cop City.”

“It is a Cop City,” Council member Robin Wonsley said later in reply.

Council member LaTrisha Vetaw disagreed. “This is not a Cop City; this is at best a Cop Corner Store,” she said, noting that while the Atlanta training center sits on 85 acres, the Minneapolis facility would be built on a site of just nearly 5-acre.

“Just because a bunch of activists and council members call it Cop City doesn’t mean it is,” Vetaw said. “It’s just a made-up thing that people use to try to diminish what we’re trying to do.”

Council member Pearll Warren said she didn’t care if opponents dubbed it a Cop City.

“I hope it is a Cop City,” she said. “I hope it’s a Cop University.”

Warren said she’d rather spend money to train police than spend it on violence prevention programs, which pay people to try to intervene to stop violence. She derided people trained in such programs as “‘21 Jump Street’ cops.”

“Last year, we just gave $900,000 to violence interruption teams for people to walk around our city in T-shirts like somebody dumped a bag of Skittles in the city,” Warren said.

Whether it is or isn’t like Atlanta’s project, here’s what you need to know about the proposed Minneapolis facility:

The City Council is being asked to spend $6 million to buy land where the city would build the training center for police, firefighters, 911 dispatchers, violence prevention workers and others.

The center would cost an estimated $38 million to build, but the city hopes the state would contribute about half of that amount.

The council has unanimously voted to put it at the top of the city’s legislative priority list for years.

Some council members, however, doubt that would happen. They say the center is not a priority for state lawmakers, who would have to approve the funding as part of the state’s bonding bill.

Minneapolis Public Safety Commissioner Todd Barnette said the project is an investment in employees who have some of the most challenging jobs in the city. He said that when the city has well-trained workers and provides support systems, it gets a “safer response.”

Palmisano said the city agreed to police reforms after George Floyd’s murder in 2020, and everyone on the council professes to want those reforms.

“Police reform isn’t just a campaign talking point,” she said. “If we’re serious, it requires investment and training and the longer we wait, the more expensive it is.”

Barnette said a new facility is needed to meet obligations set in the city’s settlement with the state to reform the Police Department. Under the agreement, an outside review of police facilities was required, and it recommended the city build a new “dedicated one-stop shop for all training activities.”

City officials say the proposed new facility would be used to consolidate training and wellness for several public safety agencies that now train in outdated and ill-suited facilities.

It also would be used to expand on-site therapy services and centralize wellness offerings for city employees.

The building would serve police, firefighters, 911 dispatch, emergency management and the Neighborhood Safety. That consolidation would foster stronger coordination and collaboration between departments, Barnette said, and allow for cross-department training.

Existing facilities limit the city’s ability to do realistic, scenario-based training that improves decision-making for officers under stress, said police Cmdr. Kris Brown.

Police now conduct training at a former elementary school in north Minneapolis, and Vetaw has long pushed to have the training moved out of the neighborhood.

Opponents say the proposed project is a want, not a need. They say it comes at a time when the budget is tight and the city faces many other more-pressing needs.

“This is not a priority right now,” Wonsley said.

The opponents say the city could instead use other public safety training facilities in the region or renovate or lease other buildings.

Council member Soren Stevenson said during a recent news conference that at a time of increasing property tax hikes, and in the wake of the immigration surge that left many families in shambles, the city’s priority should be protecting neighbors and stabilizing the economy.

The money could be better spent on George Floyd Square, traffic calming, repairing bridges or filling potholes, he said.

Council member Aisha Chughtai said she’d prefer using the money proposed for the training center to redevelop the former Kmart site or to help Uptown, which has struggled with business closures.

If all goes as planned, the city would begin construction on the facility in 2027 with an opening in late 2029 or early 2030.

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