A Minnesota Democratic Party official who vowed to "dismantle" the Minneapolis Police Department is now calling for tough-on-crime measures after carjackers attacked her.
Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party second vice chairwoman Shivanthi Sathanandan, who lives in Minneapolis, said in a Wednesday Facebook post that four young men "violently carjacked" her vehicle and then beat her. The attackers left her with "a broken leg, deep lacerations on my head, bruising, and cuts all over my body."
"I'm now part of the statistics," Sathanandan wrote. "We need to get illegal guns off of our streets, catch these young people who are running wild creating chaos across our city, and HOLD THEM IN CUSTODY AND PROSECUTE THEM."
Sathanandan at the end of her post praised the "incredible" Minneapolis police officers who responded to the attack, as well as police chief Brian O'Hara.
The Democrat's tough-on-crime positions and praise for the police are a striking shift from the stances she took during the 2020 George Floyd riots.
"DISMANTLE The Minneapolis Police Department," Sathanandan demanded on June 5, 2020. The department "has systematically failed the Black Community, they have failed ALL OF US."
Minneapolis did indeed try to abolish its police department following complaints like Sathanandan's. The city council in Dec. 2020 cut nearly $8 million in police funding as crime rates skyrocketed.
Anti-police activists were able to put a referendum question on the 2021 ballot to abolish the police in favor of a "Department of Public Safety." Voters rejected the defunding effort.
Minneapolis is still experiencing a crime wave, according to Minneapolis police data, with assaults, sex offenses, and motor vehicle thefts all up and homicides and burglaries running close to last year's numbers.
Sathanandan wrote in her recent post that Minnesotans should "REMEMBER ME when you are thinking about supporting letting juveniles and young people out of custody."
"These criminals will not win," Sathanandan wrote. "We need to take back our city."