[Mpls] Strib editoral: "Minneapolis needs a police crackdown"

[Socialist2001 at cs.com]

[Mpls] Editorial: North Side gangs/City needs a crackdown
[originally posted by] Shawn Lewis
Tue, 08 Mar 2005 04:37:13 -0800
http://www.mail-archive.com/mpls@mnforum.org/msg34795.html
Star-Tribune link:
http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/5278748.html

Without question, some areas in North Minneapolis needs some help-NOW!!!!
New voices and new leaders need to be tapped into not the same old people.
___________________________________________
What to do? Vigils, flowers and prayers aren't enough. 
Minneapolis needs a police crackdown.

Chief Bill McManus says he'll soon deliver one by returning proactive 
policing to the hottest crime zones. It's high time. For months, the north 
neighborhoods have been calling for more aggressive law enforcement, to no avail. They 
deserve better 
service from their Police Department.

Proactive policing means that cops will question loiterers and jaywalkers, 
stop cars for minor violations and get into the faces of more people. It's a 
proven tactic: Stopping petty offenses also stops major ones. But it also 
requires the cooperation 
and understanding of neighbors. They should expect cops to be reasonable and 
respectful. But they should also expect them to be aggressive and to make an 
occasional human mistake.

The police also need more information from neighbors and more intolerance -- 
not toward the police but toward criminals and their drug-buying customers.

Mayor R.T. Rybak is right when he says that every suburban party boy with 
drugs in his pocket is aiding the cause of killers. The North Side gets the 
bodies and the fear, but the whole regional drug market is culpable. So are the 
Bush and Pawlenty 
administrations for their drastic cuts in local government aid. Those cuts 
have cost Minneapolis 120 police officers and numerous jobs programs that might 
have deterred youngsters from taking up the gangster life.

Crime's greatest ally is a kid who lacks hope. Neglectful parents hurt, too. 
City Council Member Natalie Johnson Lee was right to scold them: "Mom, if you 
don't know where your kids are, find out; Dad, if you're not taking care of 
your kids, take care of them."

With heroic work by corporate, community and state leaders, Minneapolis 
remade the once-notorious Phillips neighborhood over the last decade. Now that 
energy must turn northward. Criminal gangs have been a part of the American scene 
for 150 years. But that's no excuse for tolerating gangland violence in north 
Minneapolis, or anywhere in Minnesota. It's time for a crackdown -- from 
police, from the neighborhood, from the wider community.

http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/5278748.html

-Doug Mann, King Field 
candidate for 8th ward city council
http://educationright.com