A Minneapolis violence prevention group called "We Push for Peace" received city funding to serve as an alternative to traditional policing. Investigators later found $6.5 million of the money went to luxury cars, Vegas trips, a liquor store, and a car dealership.
Two of the group's "violence interrupters" were charged after a shootout in north Minneapolis.
The Neighborhood Safety Contract Management Audit Report, released September 29, documents what happened when Minneapolis handed over $36 million to five violence prevention programs through more than 100 contracts with community groups claiming to offer alternatives to policing. The fraud didn't start with the money. But as American Wire News reported, it intensified after George Floyd's death in 2020 — the same event that made "defund the police" the city's operating philosophy.
The audit's findings read less like government oversight and more like a robbery report. The city provided insufficient contract oversight. Contractors submitted invoices with limited supporting documentation. The city continued making payments despite missing records and unresolved concerns. There was no standardized process for site visits to verify that services were actually performed.
Bill Glahn of the Center of the American Experiment summarized the arrangement: "The city seems primarily interested in shoveling money out the door to 'address' urgent problems."
Shoveling is the right word. Over 100 contracts, and the city couldn't be bothered to check whether the contractors were doing the work. Invoices showed up light on details. Payments went out anyway. The audit found that weak contract controls created "heightened fraud and improper payment risks" — bureaucratic language for "they made it easy to steal."
The "We Push for Peace" case is the one that crystallizes the whole operation. A group positioned as a community-based alternative to armed law enforcement used public money to buy luxury vehicles and fund trips to Las Vegas. Then two of its own members got into a gunfight. The program designed to stop gun violence produced gun violence.
Retired Navy intelligence officer Phillip C. Parrish connected the Minneapolis audit to a wider pattern: "This isn't a tracking glitch. It's the same business model that looted child-nutrition money, Medicaid housing, autism therapy, and daycare."
He's describing a template. Federal and state money flows into a crisis category — policing, nutrition, childcare — with minimal oversight because the political environment makes accountability look like obstruction. The same structure that drained pandemic-era nutrition programs in Minnesota found a new host in post-Floyd "community safety" funding.
Thirty-six million dollars. Over 100 contracts. No site visits. Luxury cars, a liquor store, and a shootout.
The programs meant to replace police filed invoices with no documentation. The city paid them anyway.
