The council of the U.S. city of Minneapolis voted late Sunday to dismantle and rebuild the police department, after the death in custody of George Floyd sparked nationwide protests about racism in law enforcement, pushing the issue onto the national political agenda.

Nine members – a veto-proof supermajority – of the 13-member council voted to disband the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD), which has long been accused of racism.

"Our commitment is to end our city's toxic relationship with the Minneapolis Police Department, to end policing as we know it, and to re-create systems of public safety that actually keep us safe," Lisa Bender, president of the city council, said at a community meeting with activists in Powderhorn Park on Sunday.

In a statement, members of the council said that "decades of police reform efforts have proved that the Minneapolis Police Department cannot be reformed, and will never be accountable for its actions."

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, however, is against getting rid of the department, and the head of the city's powerful police union, Bob Kroll, appeared on stage last year with President Donald Trump.

The vote by a majority of councilors came a day after Frey was booed at and asked to leave a "Defund the Police" rally. He later told AFP he supported "massive structural reform to revise this structurally racist system" but not "abolishing the entire police department."

Bystander video of the incident – which captured the unarmed George Floyd calling for his mother and saying he couldn't breathe after white police officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee on his neck for nearly nine minutes – has sparked two weeks of mostly peaceful demonstrations across the country.

On Sunday, protesters in cities including Washington, New York and Winter Park, Florida, began focusing their outrage over the death of the unarmed Floyd into demands for police reform and social justice.

(With input from Xinhua, AFP)