Jun 19, 2008
Murders, Robberies, Crime Alerts, and the City Council and Mayor are mute on crime
Where is the “elected” outrage and public rally to solve these problems? The “elected” are too busy building gardens on rooftops, laying down train tracks, tearing down 100 year old laws, building stadiums, handing out movies at libraries, building bikes paths, need I go on. What about focusing on the number one task that all elected officials are responsible for…protect the public interests? The number interest of the public is staying safe. Looks like these folks are more interested in building monuments to themselves that performing the duties for which they are elected. The general public is also to blame here for not holding these people accountable. Elected officials do have a lot to do, but there are basic things that they are responsible for at each level of government. If we, the public, continue to harp on them for our own “little pet projects and selfish interests” then they can’t be expected to stay focused on their clear areas of responsibility. Public safety is the number one concern for all city officials and is one of the top livable factors. A city can have all the bells and whistles it wants, but they all go to waste of the city isn’t safe to be in. Murderapolis has returned to the landscape, and if our elected officials don’t get a handle of this now we will be too far gone to solve it later.
Jun 18, 2008
Eden Prairie schools...at least someone gets it
Here is what seems to be a good approach to solving the achievement gap problems at least at one school. Are you listening MPS? Solid solutions make for good plans of action.
http://www.startribune.com/local/west/19974154.html?page=1&c=y
http://www.startribune.com/local/west/19974154.html?page=1&c=y
Lurking ordinance and governmental responsibility
Robin Garwood, CM Gordon’s aid, posted the following comments to the posting on lurking. I wanted to focus on this and her comments below are in litials with the Minneapolis Shadows comments in bold.
Your assertion that the Lurking ordinance "is being applied to those that are breaking it no matter what race they are" is unproven. Why? Because only 19 of the 136 adults arrested for Lurking in '07 (or 14%) were convicted of committing the crime. That's the legal standard that defines "breaking the law" in this society: being convicted. Not being arrested.
In order for someone, regardless of race, to get arrested they have to be doing something against a law on the books. People get tickets for speeding but can appeal it based on evidence that they were not. People get arrested or ticketed for crimes they didn’t commit on a daily basis, and that is what the justice system allows you to do, fight the arrest.
This is the problem with crimes which rely on police and prosecutors to determine and prove "intent" to commit a crime. Other livability crimes have concrete, visible, provable behaviors: someone tagged a wall, urinated in public, had an open alcoholic beverage in public, etc. That's why the vast majority of these arrests result in convictions.
Hate crimes convictions work basically that same way. Shall we get rid of them also?
This is why your metaphors don't work. Shoplifting is a provable behavior: someone took something and tried to leave without paying for it. Perhaps you believe we should criminalize "intending" to shoplift, and allowing police officers to arrest people based on their subjective assessment of that "intent." CM Gordon does not.
The ideal of the thought police state is very scary..thank you George Orwell. However, how does this differ from laws proscribing drug possession with intent to distribute? So does CM Gordon want to repeal this law also?
In a racist society - and yes, any serious study of racial disparity in poverty, unemployment, arrest and incarceration makes clear that our society is still deeply racist - those on the receiving end of racism will look more "suspicious" than others. Their behavior will more likely be taken as indicative of "intent to commit a crime" than exactly the same behavior on the part of a member of the majority population.
The fact that there is a racial disparity in the factors mentioned doesn’t draw a direct correlation to them being motivated based on a racist mindset. Your conclusion isn’t logical.
This is why the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Racism, Racial Discrimination and Xenophobia is looking into whether the Lurking ordinance violates the International Covenant on Elimination of Racial Discrimination (to which the US is a signatory and which obligates all units of government to eliminate racially discriminatory laws).
All governments should get rid of racially discriminatory laws! Yes, by all means. The US leads in that area. Discrimination in every form must be eliminated. How about equal rights for woman in Muslim countries? Oh, and by the way, the UN, which you are looking towards for guidance on human rights puts some of the biggest abusers of human rights in charge of the areas covering human rights.
Wow, put the inmates in charge of the asylum.
You ask about CM Gordon's agenda, and it is simply this: to spend our precious public safety resources effectively and constructively, and to make our city a more just place for all. And I'll have to respectfully disagree with you: this IS the business of the Council.”
How precious! Yea a lot of time and effort put into a hundred year law on the books but what about spending sometime on issues like addressing the ongoing murders in the city, and fighting drug and human trafficking? Try managing the city for once and get away from grandiose issues. If you interested in do that, then go work for an organization that is directly in the business of making these sort of changes on a national or global scale. I’m all for one person making a difference where they are, but we have major issues in the management of this city and our government seems more interested in dealing with these bigger issues than dollars and manhole covers. Sorry to say, but right now we need focus on the dollars and manhole covers which is the job you are hired to do. So do it!
Your assertion that the Lurking ordinance "is being applied to those that are breaking it no matter what race they are" is unproven. Why? Because only 19 of the 136 adults arrested for Lurking in '07 (or 14%) were convicted of committing the crime. That's the legal standard that defines "breaking the law" in this society: being convicted. Not being arrested.
In order for someone, regardless of race, to get arrested they have to be doing something against a law on the books. People get tickets for speeding but can appeal it based on evidence that they were not. People get arrested or ticketed for crimes they didn’t commit on a daily basis, and that is what the justice system allows you to do, fight the arrest.
This is the problem with crimes which rely on police and prosecutors to determine and prove "intent" to commit a crime. Other livability crimes have concrete, visible, provable behaviors: someone tagged a wall, urinated in public, had an open alcoholic beverage in public, etc. That's why the vast majority of these arrests result in convictions.
Hate crimes convictions work basically that same way. Shall we get rid of them also?
This is why your metaphors don't work. Shoplifting is a provable behavior: someone took something and tried to leave without paying for it. Perhaps you believe we should criminalize "intending" to shoplift, and allowing police officers to arrest people based on their subjective assessment of that "intent." CM Gordon does not.
The ideal of the thought police state is very scary..thank you George Orwell. However, how does this differ from laws proscribing drug possession with intent to distribute? So does CM Gordon want to repeal this law also?
In a racist society - and yes, any serious study of racial disparity in poverty, unemployment, arrest and incarceration makes clear that our society is still deeply racist - those on the receiving end of racism will look more "suspicious" than others. Their behavior will more likely be taken as indicative of "intent to commit a crime" than exactly the same behavior on the part of a member of the majority population.
The fact that there is a racial disparity in the factors mentioned doesn’t draw a direct correlation to them being motivated based on a racist mindset. Your conclusion isn’t logical.
This is why the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Racism, Racial Discrimination and Xenophobia is looking into whether the Lurking ordinance violates the International Covenant on Elimination of Racial Discrimination (to which the US is a signatory and which obligates all units of government to eliminate racially discriminatory laws).
All governments should get rid of racially discriminatory laws! Yes, by all means. The US leads in that area. Discrimination in every form must be eliminated. How about equal rights for woman in Muslim countries? Oh, and by the way, the UN, which you are looking towards for guidance on human rights puts some of the biggest abusers of human rights in charge of the areas covering human rights.
Wow, put the inmates in charge of the asylum.
You ask about CM Gordon's agenda, and it is simply this: to spend our precious public safety resources effectively and constructively, and to make our city a more just place for all. And I'll have to respectfully disagree with you: this IS the business of the Council.”
How precious! Yea a lot of time and effort put into a hundred year law on the books but what about spending sometime on issues like addressing the ongoing murders in the city, and fighting drug and human trafficking? Try managing the city for once and get away from grandiose issues. If you interested in do that, then go work for an organization that is directly in the business of making these sort of changes on a national or global scale. I’m all for one person making a difference where they are, but we have major issues in the management of this city and our government seems more interested in dealing with these bigger issues than dollars and manhole covers. Sorry to say, but right now we need focus on the dollars and manhole covers which is the job you are hired to do. So do it!
Another day, higher temps, and another death in Murderapolis
This time it was a knife, not a gun, that up and killed a dude. Maybe it’s time to ban knives. I can hear the silly council now…ban ‘hand knives”. Or maybe, shut down the city when temps are over 75 degrees because it causes murders.
It’s the fourth murder in 4 days and no longer can the city brag about the rate being down over last year as it is continuing to climb. It is extremely sad to see all of this death occurring around us. What is even more distributing is that the city council isn’t doing much about it. People we need to take this stuff seriously. Memorial walks, candlelight services, and hand holding sing-a-longs aren’t going to solve anything. Police boots on the streets patrolling neighbors is the most effective way to get a handle on this problem. The mayor and city council are unwilling to forego all of their pet projects to buy enough police protection to perform their number one duty… protect the public.
It’s the fourth murder in 4 days and no longer can the city brag about the rate being down over last year as it is continuing to climb. It is extremely sad to see all of this death occurring around us. What is even more distributing is that the city council isn’t doing much about it. People we need to take this stuff seriously. Memorial walks, candlelight services, and hand holding sing-a-longs aren’t going to solve anything. Police boots on the streets patrolling neighbors is the most effective way to get a handle on this problem. The mayor and city council are unwilling to forego all of their pet projects to buy enough police protection to perform their number one duty… protect the public.
Jun 16, 2008
Why rural and suburban folks should pay attention to the city
The simple answer is what happen here today will happen there tomorrow. Minneapolis and Saint Paul make up a huge slice of the Minnesota population pie. Forever has there been a political tug of war going among the population centers and the suburban and rural areas, but the lines are blurring and the issues more muddled.
We at the Urban Renaissance Coalition, and the Minneapolis Shadow personally, are focused not on political bent, but on factors that improve life in the “big city”. Most of these ideals aren’t specific to the city, but what affects the largest population areas today filters out to the rest of the landscape tomorrow. Take crime for an example. As an area crime rate increases so does the rest of the area surrounding it sooner or later. The economic impact of an increase in crime mounds as the problem isn’t addressed. Take car jacking for example. As the rate of car jacking goes up, so does your insurance rates. The thieves start moving around the area more towards outside of the city, and now you have a car jacking increase in the suburbs as well. If a city policy wound have been put into place sooner to curb car jacking then the thieves would have been more likely to move on to another state altogether, instead of taking root locally. Most of the time criminals magnate towards the population centers and spread out of there no matter the type of crime you are talking about. Hence the need for all areas to focus on what happens in the cities. Does this mean that the cities should get all of the attention? NO! The biggest problem is that the “elected” who administer the funds in the city are irresponsible with the money they receive and can’t be trusted to take care of the serious problems that plague the citizens living in the cities. How can any suburban or rural citizen have any trust in the city officials to spend money wisely when the city officials go on spending sprees for things like garden rooftops, bike paths instead of roads and bridge repair, movie rental libraries, stadiums for multi-billionaires, and ‘little trains that think they can” fix traffic congestion problems. However you suburban folks should keep in mind, what happens here today will happen in your backyard tomorrow. So pay close attention!
We at the Urban Renaissance Coalition, and the Minneapolis Shadow personally, are focused not on political bent, but on factors that improve life in the “big city”. Most of these ideals aren’t specific to the city, but what affects the largest population areas today filters out to the rest of the landscape tomorrow. Take crime for an example. As an area crime rate increases so does the rest of the area surrounding it sooner or later. The economic impact of an increase in crime mounds as the problem isn’t addressed. Take car jacking for example. As the rate of car jacking goes up, so does your insurance rates. The thieves start moving around the area more towards outside of the city, and now you have a car jacking increase in the suburbs as well. If a city policy wound have been put into place sooner to curb car jacking then the thieves would have been more likely to move on to another state altogether, instead of taking root locally. Most of the time criminals magnate towards the population centers and spread out of there no matter the type of crime you are talking about. Hence the need for all areas to focus on what happens in the cities. Does this mean that the cities should get all of the attention? NO! The biggest problem is that the “elected” who administer the funds in the city are irresponsible with the money they receive and can’t be trusted to take care of the serious problems that plague the citizens living in the cities. How can any suburban or rural citizen have any trust in the city officials to spend money wisely when the city officials go on spending sprees for things like garden rooftops, bike paths instead of roads and bridge repair, movie rental libraries, stadiums for multi-billionaires, and ‘little trains that think they can” fix traffic congestion problems. However you suburban folks should keep in mind, what happens here today will happen in your backyard tomorrow. So pay close attention!
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