Formed in August of 1968, the American Indian Movement Patrol (AIM Patrol) was a citizens’ patrol created in response to police brutality against Native Americans in Minneapolis. Patrollers observed officers’ interactions with Native people and offered mediators that community members could call on for help. In 2016, a similar but separate group operated under the same name.
The United States policies of termination and relocation brought large numbers of Native Americans to urban centers between the 1940s and 1960s. Through termination, the federal government dissolved many Native American nations’ sovereign rights and absorbed their members into the U.S. mainstream. Through relocation, it encouraged Native Americans to move from their reservations to urban centers. This set the stage for Native people to confront issues commonly associated with cities, including police brutality.
The American Indian Movement (AIM) is a national organization that formed 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 repurpose the term “American Indian.” AIM members met regularly to advocate for Native civil rights, create community programs, and organize protests.
The patrol, one of AIM’s first programs, formed during a meeting held in Minneapolis on August 19, 1968. Of the roughly seventy people who attended, 50 percent voted to create the patrol. They agreed that patrollers would cover an area along East Franklin Avenue in the Phillips neighborhood in South Minneapolis, where there was a concentrated population of Native people.
Related: The Minneapolis-founded American Indian Movement responded to the needs of urban American Indians
Patrollers worked to decrease police brutality against Native people by limiting interaction between police and community members and offering itself as a crisis-resolution alternative. The patrol would also observe “any irregularities in police arrest procedures in the area” but would not physically interfere with police work. Citizen patrols like AIM’s formed across the nation during the late 1960s and 1970s. They included the Black Panther Party of Self Defense in California and the less well-known Soul Patrol in North Minneapolis.
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The first board members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) in 1968. Credit: Roger Woo, courtesy of the American Indian Movement Interpretive Center, via MNopedia -
A woman speaks at a podium at an AIM-organized forum on police brutality in 1968. Credit: Roger Woo, courtesy of the American Indian Movement Interpretive Center, via MNopedia -
A 1973 AIM patch commemorating the 83rd anniversary of the Wounded Knee massacre in South Dakota. Credit: MNopedia
In its early days, AIM Patrol worked with other programs created by the American Indian Movement, including the Legal Rights Center, which helped find lawyers for Native defendants. It was staffed by volunteers. Though most of them identified as American Indian, membership was open to all races and ethnicities. Volunteers wore red jackets and red shirts with the AIM logo while patrolling. At first, they only patrolled on Friday and Saturday nights. Eventually, they expanded their hours to include weekday evenings.
Five weeks after AIM Patrol was established, AIM leaders proclaimed that no Native 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
During the 1960s and 1970s, patrollers used walkie-talkies, two-way radios, cameras, tape recorders, and cars to communicate with each other. They documented police interactions with Native people and monitored police dispatches. Local residents called AIM Patrol to assist in deescalating potential fights and preventing intra-community violence. Patrollers also worked as security for community events such as powwows, school dances, and basketball games, and encouraged youth not to engage in drug or alcohol use.
The original incarnation of AIM Patrol disbanded around 1975. In 1987, however, AIM reinstated it after three high-profile murders of Native women in the Phillips neighborhood. This new incarnation of AIM Patrol was active throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, when gang violence in Minneapolis increased.
In 1991, the offices of AIM Patrol moved into the newly opened Elaine M. Stately Peacemakers Center at 2300 Cedar Avenue South. Reports of continued police brutality towards Native people—such as the 1993 incident in which Minneapolis police officers forced two men into the trunk of police car—affirmed AIM Patrol’s existence and original goals. Leadership changes and community disagreements in the same year, however, led to the group’s decline in the mid-1990s.
A new incarnation of the patrol, led by Mike Forcia, emerged in 2010.
In 2016, although a group of Minneapolis community members continued to operate as AIM Patrol, it is not sanctioned by the American Indian Movement.
Bibliography
Baccerra, Marilyn. “Indian Patrol Curb Arrests, Leader Says.” Minneapolis Tribune, September 18, 1968.
Bancroft, Dick, and Laura Waterman Wittstock. We Are 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 News, July 9, 1993.
Originally found here.
“Bellecourt Asks for Aid for Patrols.” Minneapolis Tribune, April 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 Top Indian Complaint Against Police.” Minneapolis Tribune, August 9, 1968.
“City Indians Form Coalition and Elect Temporary Chairman.” Minneapolis Tribune, July 30, 1968.
Cree, Delvin. “Community Concerned About Criminal Records of Peacemaker Center Associates.” Native American Press, June 18, 1993.
Originally found here.
Franklin, Robert. “State Indian Commission Votes to Probe Beating by Deputy.” Minneapolis Tribune, April 2, 1968.
Geshick, Joseph G. “Ignoring the Negative Prevents Positive Change.” Ojibwe News, December 3, 1993.
Originally found here.
Grow, Doug. “AIM Patrol Still on Alert for Thugs—and Cop.” Minneapolis Star Tribune, February 12, 1989.
“Indian Group Forms Patrol.” Minneapolis Tribune, August 20, 1968.
Ivins, Molly. “Indian Group 1st Anniversary Called ‘Miracle’.” Minneapolis Tribune, August 3, 1969.
Lewis, Finlay. “Indian Group Wants Policeman Charged.” Minneapolis Tribune, November 13, 1968.
Lundengaard, Bob. “Policeman Cleared of Assault.” Minneapolis Tribune, November 21, 1968.
Lurie, Jon. “The Eyes and Ears: AIM Patrol Returns to the Streets of Philips after a Twenty-Year Absence.” Twin Cities Daily Planet, November 9, 2010.
Martin, Patti, et al. “Community Member Speaks Out on Cronick’s Resignation and Bellecourt’s Role.” Ojibwe News, July 23, 1993. Originally found here.
“Policeman Charged in Indian Assault.” Minneapolis Tribune, November 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
Newspaper clipping files
Minneapolis History Collection, Hennepin County Library, Minneapolis
Description: Various items and articles about the American Indian Movement printed in Twin Cities newspapers.
Photographs collection
Archives, American Indian Movement Interpretative Center, Minneapolis
Description: Photographs documenting the development, operations, 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 Shall Remain. DVD. Public Broadcasting Service, 2009.
American Indian 20th Century Relocation to Minnesota Cities. DVD. [Minnetonka, MN]: Hennepin County Library, 2008.
Harjo, Suzan Shown. Nation to Nation: Treaties between the United States & American Indian Nations. Washington, D.C.: National Museum of the American Indian, 2014.
Committee on the judiciary united states senate ninety-fourth congress. Subcommittee to investigate the administration of the internal security act 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.
“Taking AIM.” YouTube video, 10:00, from Langworthy, Lucas, Taking AIM: The Story of the American Indian Movement. Twin Cities, MN, 2010. Posted by 612graves, May 22, 2013.
The post How the American Indian Movement Patrol combated police brutality in Minneapolis appeared first on MinnPost.
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