Minnesota State Fair.
Minneapolis mayoral candidate Don Samuels on Monday outlined his plan to reduce violent crime in the city.
The initiative, he said, would target six extended families that are currently involved in crime. It also would ban some gun shows and sales in such city-owned facilities as the Convention Center and require the reporting of lost and stolen guns.
“There are six families in the city that are responsible for a hugely disproportional amount of crime,” said Samuels, the City Council member who chairs the Public Safety Committee.
“Many of the elders are taken off to jail and are spending a long time in jail,” he said, “and then at home you have these young dudes who are the men of the family.”
Samuels said he would have the city start working with the children of those families before kindergarten and offer them targeted special services in an attempt to change the culture of crime.
“These families are going to be circled by a set of resources and agencies that will guarantee that they will not be isolated,” said Samuels. The effort, he said, would include summer programs for children and teens and job training for adults as an alternative to a life of crime.
“It’s going to be a lot of love and, in case that doesn’t work, a lot of consequences,” he said. “Right now all we’re doing is consequences.”
Samuels also would crack down on the practice of a “straw purchaser” buying guns, selling them to someone else and then claiming the weapons were lost or stolen after they have been used in a crime.
“It’s totally outside of the boundaries of possibility that someone could be losing so many guns,” said Samuels. “Light is going to be shone on the person who is chronically losing their guns.”
To end the practice of “straw purchasing,” Samuels would require the immediate reporting of lost or stolen guns and hold gun owners responsible for their weapons.
Samuels also would ban the sale of guns at city-owned facilities unless sellers agree to perform background checks on potential purchasers on site before a sale.
Losing my rep is sad
Well Mr. Samuels has certainly done a good turn as 5 ward representative and I personally do not relish losing him as the service has been substantive and people centered rather than corporate centered. In my northside neighborhood there are some kids who really could use some of that “love” as they have no effective parent on the premesis. What passes for care is appalling and in 5 years or so these kids will be completely gone, like others who I’ve seen in this neighborhood who had no chance because they had no real parent. The decimation of social services that began in the Reagan administration and continues today reflects a values change in the nation that is coming back to haunt us in the streets. We have never solved a problem by throwing money at it, nor have we engaged substantively those same problems. We like to manage, not engage. We like to smooth things over rather than dig up and replant when we need to. I would like to see Mr. Samuels as mayor just to see if he’d actually DO some of the things he’s discussed, or at least attempt to. The status quo at the Palace of the People needs shaking up, and I’d like to see Mr. Samuels do that.
(Out of the box thinking/What we need for a mayor)
We know who they are and we know what they do, and we know the SOS won’t work,
Great thinking by a great Mayoral candidate.
PS: Don has demonstrated over the years that he has the capability and moxie to put this feet in the street thinking into reality!
Seriously people
Don Samuels is not part of the solution. He has been part of the problem as are all DFLers. They have controlled this city since the beginning of time so all the problem have been created on their watch. Yet now, magically because Samuels is running for Mayor, you think his answers and solutions will be different or have a different outcome? Seriously?
Crime has been a problem for years, yet only now that he wants a promotion, Samuels offers a “fix”? Why didn’t he offer this fix last year, or the year before that? If suddenly he has all the answers, what changed? Did he duck into a phone booth and change into Superman? Did he stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night? What has changed in the last month to make his solutions the answer?
Do you all know the definition of insanity? It is doing the same thing (electing DFL’ers) over and over again and expecting a different result. Nothing changes if Samuels is elected mayor. Nothing.