The American Indian Movement Patrol Combats Police Brutality – MinnPost

Founded in August 1968, the American Indian Movement Patrol (AIM Patrol) was a civilian patrol formed in response to police brutality against Native Americans in Minneapolis. Patrols observed officers’ interactions with Indigenous people and provided mediators from whom community members could ask for help. In 2016, a similar but separate group operated under the same name.

The U.S. policy of termination and relocation brought large numbers of Native Americans to urban centers between the 1940s and 1960s. Through the termination, the federal government abrogated the sovereign rights of many Native American nations and incorporated their members into the American mainstream. Through relocation, it encouraged Native Americans to move from their reservations to urban centers. This set the stage for Indigenous people to address issues often associated with cities, including police brutality.

The American Indian Movement (AIM) is a national organization founded in July 1968. Hundreds of people attended the first AIM meeting, on Plymouth Avenue in North Minneapolis. Originally called the Concerned Indian American Coalition (CIA), the group changed its name after an elder named Alberta Downwind insisted that they reclaim and reuse the term “American Indian.” AIM members met regularly to advocate for indigenous civil rights, establish community programs, and organize protests.

The patrol, one of AIM’s earliest programs, was formed at a meeting in Minneapolis on August 19, 1968. Of the approximately seventy attendees, 50 percent voted in favor of establishing the patrol. They agreed that patrols would cover an area along East Franklin Avenue in the Phillips neighborhood of south Minneapolis, where a concentrated population of indigenous people lived.

Related: The Minneapolis-founded American Indian Movement responded to the needs of urban American Indians

Patrols sought to reduce police violence against Indigenous people by limiting interactions between police and community members and offering themselves as an alternative for crisis resolution. The patrol would also observe “any irregularities in police arrest procedures in the area” but would not physically interfere with police work. Civilian patrols like AIM’s were formed across the country in the late 1960s and 1970s. Among them were the Black Panther Party of Self Defense in California and the lesser-known Soul Patrol in North Minneapolis.

In its early days, AIM Patrol worked with other American Indian Movement programs, including the Legal Rights Center, which helped find attorneys for Native defendants. It was staffed by volunteers. Although most of them identified as American Indians, membership was open to all races and ethnicities. Volunteers wore red jackets and red shirts with the AIM logo during their patrols. Initially they only patrolled on Friday and Saturday evenings. Eventually they expanded their hours to weekday evenings.

Five weeks after AIM Patrol was established, AIM leaders declared that no Indigenous people had been arrested – a dramatic reduction from the five to six arrests usually reported each day. A year later, AIM leaders claimed that twenty-two consecutive weeks had passed without any arrests of American Indians.

Related: Why the American Indian Movement Started the Heart of the Earth Survival School

In the 1960s and 1970s, patrols used walkie-talkies, two-way radios, cameras, tape recorders and cars to communicate with each other. They documented police interactions with indigenous people and monitored police communications. Local residents called AIM Patrol to help de-escalate possible fighting and prevent violence within the community. Patrols also worked as security at community events such as powwows, school dances and basketball games, encouraging young people to avoid drug or alcohol use.

The original incarnation of AIM Patrol disbanded around 1975. However, in 1987, AIM reinstated it after three high-profile murders of indigenous women in the Phillips neighborhood. This new incarnation of AIM Patrol operated in the late 1980s and 1990s, as gang violence increased in Minneapolis.

In 1991, AIM Patrol’s offices moved to the newly opened Elaine M. Stately Peacemakers Center at 2300 Cedar Avenue South. Reports of continued police violence against indigenous people – such as the 1993 incident in which Minneapolis police officers forced two men into the trunk of a police car – confirmed the existence and original objectives of AIM Patrol. However, leadership changes and community disagreements in the same year led to the group’s decline in the mid-1990s.

A new incarnation of the patrol, led by Mike Forcia, emerged in 2010.

Although a group of community members in Minneapolis continued to operate as AIM Patrol in 2016, this is not sanctioned by the American Indian Movement.

Bibliography

Baccerra, Marilyn. ‘Indian patrol curbs arrests, says leader.’ Minneapolis GrandstandSeptember 18, 1968.

Bancroft, Dick and Laura Waterman Wittstock. We’re Still Here: A Photographic History of the American Indian Movement. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2013.

Blair, Gary. “Cronick resigns from AIM Patrol.” Ojibwe NewsJuly 9, 1993.
Originally found here.

“Bellecourt asks for help for patrols.” Minneapolis GrandstandApril 11, 1969.

Bellecourt, Clyde H. and Jon Lurie. The thunder before the storm: the autobiography of Clyde Bellecourt. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2016.

“‘Brutality’ is the top Indian complaint against the police.” Minneapolis GrandstandAugust 9, 1968.

“City Indians form a coalition and elect a temporary chairman.” Minneapolis GrandstandJuly 30, 1968.

Cree, Delvin. “Community Concerns About Criminal Records of Peacemaker Center Employees.” Indian pressJune 18, 1993.
Originally found here.

Franklin, Robert. “Indian State Commission votes for assault by deputy.” Minneapolis GrandstandApril 2, 1968.

Geshick, Joseph G. “Ignoring the Negative Prevents Positive Change.” Ojibwe NewsDecember 3, 1993.
Originally found here.

Grow, Doug. ‘AIM patrol is still on alert for criminals and police officers.’ Minneapolis Star-TribuneFebruary 12, 1989.

“Indian group forms patrol.” Minneapolis GrandstandAugust 20, 1968.

Ivins, Molly. “First anniversary of the Indian group called ‘Miracle’.” Minneapolis GrandstandAugust 3, 1969.

Lewis, Finlay. “Indian group wants police officer charged.” Minneapolis GrandstandNovember 13, 1968.

Lundengaard, Bob. “Police officer acquitted of assault.” Minneapolis GrandstandNovember 21, 1968.

Lurie, Jon. “The eyes and ears: AIM Patrol returns to the streets of Philips after twenty years of absence.” Twin Cities Daily PlanetNovember 9, 2010.

Martin, Patti, et al. “Community member speaks out about Cronick’s resignation and Bellecourt’s role.” Ojibwe NewsJuly 23, 1993. Originally found here.

“Police officer charged in Indian attack.” Minneapolis GrandstandNovember 15, 1968.

Renville, Norma (Operations Manager, AIM Interpretive Center). Conversation with the author. November 9, 2016.

Smith, Paul Chaat and Robert Allen Warrior. Like a Hurricane: The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee. New York: New Press, 1996.

Specktor, Mordecai. “29 Years of the American Indian Movement: From Franklin Avenue to Wounded Knee and Beyond.” The Circle (Minneapolis), August 1988.

Related Resources

Primary

American Indian Movement (AIM) newsletters
Special Collections, Hennepin County Library, Minneapolis

Files with newspaper clippings
Minneapolis History Collection, Hennepin County Library, Minneapolis
Description: Various items and articles about the American Indian Movement printed in Twin Cities newspapers.

Photos collection
Archives, American Indian Movement Interpretative Center, Minneapolis
Description: Photographs documenting the development, activities, and meetings of the American Indian Movement in Minneapolis.

Secondary

Cohen, Fay G. “The Indian Patrol in Minneapolis: Social Control and Social Change in an Urban Context.” PhD Diss. University of Minnesota, 1973.

Grimberg, Sharon. American experience: we will stay. DVD. Public Broadcasting, 2009.

20th century American Indian movement to Minnesota towns. DVD. [Minnetonka, MN]: Hennepin County Library, 2008.

Harjo, Suzan shown. Nation to Nation: Treaties between the United States and the American Indians. Washington, DC: National Museum of the American Indian, 2014.

Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Ninety-fourth Congress. Subcommittee investigating the implementation of the Internal Security Law and other internal security laws. Revolutionary Activities within the United States: The American Indian Movement. Washington, DC: US ​​Government Printing Office, 1976.

Web

American Indian Movement Interpretive Center.

“Take PURPOSE.” YouTube video, 10:00 am, by Langworthy, Lucas, Taking AIM: The Story of the American Indian Movement. Twin Cities, MN, 2010. Posted by 612graves, May 22, 2013.

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