After pro-police billboards defaced with graffiti in Twin Cities, sponsors offer $10K reward
A handful of billboards in support of law enforcement have been vandalized in the Twin Cities, including one that was altered with graffiti in Minneapolis to say “Shoot Our Police” rather than “Support Our Police.”
The Center of the American Experiment is offering a $10,000 reward for information that leads to the prosecution and conviction of the person or people responsible, John Hinderaker, the president of the Golden Valley-based conservative-leaning think tank, said Tuesday.
The center launched a public awareness campaign last week, saying it is seeking “to inform Minnesotans of a dramatic increase in violent crime in the Twin Cities and give law enforcement supporters a voice in the public debate over the role of police in our communities.”
The 38 billboards put up in the greater metro area include headlines from local media reports, such as, “Multiple shootings in metro area overnight.” A billboard with that message in the area of Marshall and Snelling avenues in St. Paul was altered with graffiti to say “Multiple police shootings,” and an expletive about police was added underneath.
A Center of the American Experiment staff member talked to an officer Tuesday to file a police report. The group is quickly replacing the vandalized billboards, Hinderaker said.
A poll of 500 registered Minnesota voters, commissioned by the center in June, found 85 percent have confidence in police. The organization posted a petition at SupportMNpolice.com and Hinderaker said thousands of people have signed it.
“We’re hearing every day from many, many people who are appalled at these extreme leftists who are committing these acts of vandalism,” he said.
Is the sentiment in the Twin Cities about policing different from what the center found in the poll elsewhere in Minnesota?
Hinderaker said the only places they “found any significant support for the idea of ‘defunding’ the police” — which has come up since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody — was in Minneapolis and St. Paul.
“If you go into the suburbs, that is an overwhelmingly unpopular concept,” he said.
Source: MARA H. GOTTFRIED
