MINNEAPOLIS — The city of Minneapolis wants to enlist some camera cops to cut down on crashes and traffic-related deaths. A similar effort was launched about two decades ago, but a few things would need to happen this time around to give it another go.
In June 2005, the Minneapolis Police Department enlisted some red-light cameras to cut crashes and save lives. They say it worked, but the Minnesota Supreme Court then unanimously decided that the cameras violated state law.
“There’s absolutely no doubt that this was an illegal ordinance and the city either knew it or should have known it when it was enacted,” Howard Bass, an attorney with the ACLU, said in 2007.
Then-Mayor R.T. Rybak said that he’d hoped that they’d be able to operate the cameras under current laws, but admitted that wasn’t the case.
“So now we’re going to have to go forward and change the law. We hoped it would work. It didn’t,” Rybak said.
At the time, the city failed to get legislation passed that would authorize their red-light cameras. But now the city is trying again.