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Several residents of the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood gathered at the Brian Coyle Center Tuesday to voice safety concerns during a monthly meeting with law enforcement.
Residents listed areas around the neighborhood, including along Cedar Avenue, where people openly sell and use drugs, lamenting that when they call in the criminal activity, the dealers are gone by the time the officers arrive, prompting them to return.
A presentation from the neighborhood’s community safety specialist pilot, a new city program to improve safety by stationing ambassadors in the area, to the assembled group described long wait times after calling police. AJ Awed, executive director of the Cedar-Riverside Community Council and head of the pilot program, said he hopes his group can help make up the lessened police presence, but it’ll be more challenging if officers don’t respond to their calls in time.
“It’s going to be extremely difficult if the response isn’t there,” he told officers.
Community members’ concerns followed common themes of long response times and dwindling police presence, highlighting how the Minneapolis Police Department’s staffing woes are affecting community efforts around public safety.
[image_caption]AJ Awed[/image_caption]
“We have half the cops we used to have,” said Minneapolis Police Lt. Nick Torborg of the First Precinct. “We don’t have a lot of free time for general patrolling.”
Torborg said it used to be that he’d take a list of areas that need extra patrols via complaints from residents to roll calls each day. Officers would then make a note of those spots and patrol or hang out in the areas between calls to deter criminal activity.
But from 4:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m., the entire First Precinct – which covers all of downtown and Cedar-Riverside – has between 12 and 14 officers on duty, prompting officers to have less time between calls to address those neighborhood concerns than they used to.
“We try to do that still but we just don’t have the opportunities that we used to have,” Torborg said. “So I don’t want to make promises that I can’t keep.”
The department has not yet recovered from a wave of resignations, retirements and disability leaves that followed the unrest after George Floyd’s murder by a then-officer two years ago, remaining short of the mandated minimum of 731 officers.
The most recent data show Minneapolis with 604 sworn officers, which includes 33 on a continuous leave of nearly two weeks or more.
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Several north Minneapolis residents including former city council member Don Samuels sued the city last year in an effort to increase staffing levels. The case went to the Minnesota Supreme Court, which ruled in June that the city must employ the minimum number of officers outlined in the city charter.
Mayor Jacob Frey’s budget proposal, unveiled last month, would give the police department $400 million over the next two years, allowing the city to reach 731 officers by next year and fund four new classes of recruits for the next two years.
In Cedar-Riverside, the city of Minneapolis is holding a public safety recruitment event on Thursday in an effort to get more people from the predominantly East African neighborhood to consider becoming a police officer or 911 dispatcher.
The three-hour event, which will be attended by new Office of Community Safety Commissioner Cedric Alexander and interim MPD Chief Amelia Huffman, starts at 5 p.m. at the Brian Coyle Center.
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Just yesterday I called 911 about a possible overdose victim lying on the sidewalk in the neighborhood. Drug of choice appears to be fentanyl, heated on small pieces of aluminum foil and inhaled. The users all seem to be young men and women, mostly mild-mannered. When shooed away from one location, one said, “can’t we even do drugs in our own neighborhood?” The dealers aren’t being tracked down, and at least one officer needs to be assigned that job!
Any idea how many times someone from that section of town happens to call a member of the Trumpers’ cop union and gets asked, “Your party affiliation please?”
MPD are the Catskills meal in Annie Hall: terrible, and in such small portions.
I have never heard of anyone asking that question. A few things–that is the 1st precinct and they usually have 14-16 people covering that area, so there is that. Drug dealers are hard to track and hard to legally prove what they are doing and you also need victims/witnesses testifying in court. And then you have the reality that when people who are using are taken to the hospital, the hospital allows them to sober up, provides a list of resources and most of the time, the person is deemed able to make their own decisions. So who should cops arrest? Sellers? Those buying? And in the case of restorative court, there usually is not much in the way of consequence if the person does not show up.
To answer your question none.
Well guys we can relate from NOMI! Go talk to your de-funder folks, they are the reason for this craziness. Seems they are proud of it and still pushing their de-fund agenda!
What defunding of MPD actually took place? None. And now Mayor Frey has proposed to increase the MPD budget even more. If you want to blame someone for MPD staffing levels, the blame lies with the officers that walked off the job. Period. And don’t cry about cops being disrespected. Teachers, nurses, retail workers are all subjected to similar or worse abuse and they continue to show up to work. It’s only cops that are apparently aren’t tough enough to deal with being picked on.
Interesting to listen to the individuals who complain about the lack of police protection are the ones who complain the most about cops and then blame police officers for leaving the profession. I’m willing to bet in your line of work you’ve never had to consider that you could be assaulted or murdered in the line of duty.
Just like teaching , police officers are leaving or not entering the profession. Better pay and working conditions elsewhere , plus no longer have to protect people who think so little about them. Sounds like there’s jobs available ….. maybe you should apply.
No one defunded MPD. In case you weren’t paying attention, the majority of us Minneapolis residents said no to that. We have a massive shortage in officers because suddenly being put under a microscope became too uncomfortable for too many officers who were not doing their jobs. So they “claim” PTSD and take early retirement/settlements.
I always come away from a story like this with a lingering sense of skepticism. Obviously MPD is down cops, but why do they go to neighborhood meeting and tell people that half the force is gone, when it’s really closer to 15%? And where are all the other cops in quieter MPLS precincts while these neighborhoods are in trouble? Is the Kenwood neighborhood still getting extra policing because they pay extra for it? I’m not saying there are no challenges but I wonder if MPD management is handling this as well as they could? How much of an organizational issue is this?
Also, if you write an article that mentions the extra money MPD has gotten to bring it’s numbers back up… how many new recruits are in the pipeline?
The reality is MPD has less than 600 officers by recent count. There were 834 in May of 2020 which is a decrease of about 28%. Assuming an 8 hour shift that’s 200 officers available in the city of Minneapolis.
There are many reasons for the lack of officers. You have to believe recruiting efforts will be difficult.
Overall there’s a significant increase in crime. I doubt the current force can solve petty crime street sales and use of drugs.
I find it confusing that the sale and use of fentanyl is now the police officers priority to stop it on the street. Especially when our current administration is oblivious to the open southern border and the drugs coming through it. Fentanyl overdoses are at record levels , particularly among young people yet we here nothing if anything that is being done to stop it before it’s used on the streets of Minneapolis
Vilify and demean police officers and you have less officers. When you have less officers you have more crime. If the residents are truly fed up with lawlessness, they will vote in folks who will enforce laws. Frye can plan on hiring 100’s of officers but if only a few want the job of being a cop, good luck. Simple cause and effect.
Oh my gosh you mean it’s wrong to expect police officers to operate with transparency? Being a cop should never mean someone is above the law, or above consequences of mistakes.