Chief Lanier’s five-year assault on GLLU’s core unit is the cause for the growing anti-LGBT institutional discrimination at MPD, as well as the rise in LGBT-related crimes and hate crimes across the city.

It is not hard to reverse that policy. All it takes is the WILL of credible activists to insist upon that directly from Mayor Gray, Judiciary Chair Mendelson and others — who promised LGBT voters they would restore GLLU’s core unit to full strength, just last year. I don’t think LGBT voters have, or will forget those promises.

It is an unforgettable thing when a mayor or council member doesn’t care about the fear their failure to act is creating for average LGBT residents and visitors. Now LGBT people have to worry about whether MPD is going to protect and serve them at all.

I also find it interesting that not once has Rick Rosendall noted that one of the LGBT community’s most prominent city leaders, CM Jim Graham, dropped by this meeting to show his personal support for the LGBT activists. Graham reportedly also grilled Chief Lanier on her dismantling of GLLU’s core unit. But apparently that wasn’t newsworthy enough for Rick Rosendall to report to the Blade.

Jim Graham gets it. And he knows what it takes to fix it. Fixing GLLU’s core unit will enable MPD to begin to credibly fix the rest of it. GLAA, sad to say, does not get it.

Fluffy, happy-talk soundbites, for LGBT community consumption, don’t cut it any more, as fear for our public safety rises. Rick implies something “productive” is being done, but he doesn’t point to any substantive MPD changes that will occur as a result of this meeting.

Chief Lanier’s promises “to look into” problems she willfully created at GLLU is just laughable, as well. Any of us can deduce that the reason GLLU hasn’t been as visible in the LGBT community is because Lanier herself does not want them there. She slashed GLLU’s core in half!

Until GLLU’s core unit is fully restored, Lanier’s promises will remain as empty as they have been for the last 4 years+.