Minneapolis Police Department 2nd Precinct

2nd Precinct Contact Information

Phone

612-673-5702

Property Crimes

612-673-5712

2nd Precinct Advisory Committee Meetings

February 2022 Report

as reported by: Emilie Quast, board member

Our speaker tonight is Joni Hodne, 911/MECC Assistant Director for the City of Minneapolis Emergency Communications. In May, 2021, she presented the state of the 911/311 response, which was a huge shift from what we'd heard in October, 2018 [https://courtwatch2pac.com/2019/01/13/oct-2-pac-meeting-report-911-emergency-center/]. In May, she stated that many of the protocols were under review and likely to change. We agreed she'd be coming back when the new protocols had been tested and confirmed, or given a second rewrite. Tonight was the night for our updates.

[Here, Emilie had to leave to handle an administrative issue. In the meantime...]

While we were waiting for the administrative issues to get cleared up, CPS Ali offered additional progress reports.

CPS Ali brought us up to date about a 911/311 issue that Crime Prevention has been working on for a while. The issue is MPD response to loud-noise complaints, "noisy parties" complaints, loud individuals, modified motorcycles, and a long list of similar issues. In the past, the procedure was for a complaint to go from 911 to the Crime Prevention office. The issue was that the CPS has no administrative authority to do anything about an event. Crime Prevention can't issue citations or impose penalties. This has now been changed.

This kind of complaint now belongs to "Environmental Health", which is a department that has the ability to measure noise, and to send out an administrative citation after several warnings. It will take a while for all responders to get on board with the new protocol, so CPS will still receive calls, but now the calls will be forwarded to Environmental Health.

Dan Miller asked what "CPS" stands for -- Crime Prevention Specialist. CPS Ali then asked if speed on Stinson Parkway was still down [a project they had worked on together]. Miller responded that it's down, which is likely caused by a number of things. The city went to 20 MPH limit, so if someone is driving that on Stinson, no one else can do much about it. [Much of Stinson is now one lane traffic.] Even without a 20 MPH car in the lead, people are now driving 25-30 MPH, instead of 35 and up. It's getting better.

QQ about deploying squad cars: the construction on 15th Avenue SE on the former McDonald's site, is now pumping concrete. He often sees a squad parked there all day just to keep traffic away from the truck access. Is that part of the program?

AA Inspector McGinty replied that this is happening all over the city. Utility and construction companies privately hire off duty-officers to keep their workers safe. Xcell Energy is also paying off duty officers when their line workers report feeling unsafe. The question has come up before, "Does the City pay those officers to guard private company property?" The answer is no. They are there being paid by the private companies because they are off duty.

The Inspector added, the bonus for us is that if the officers are on the clock for Xcell [e.g.], and a priority 1 call comes in nearby, the officers are required to clock off the Xcell job and respond to the priority 1 call. This is a good way to have more cops nearby in the precinct.

QQ Because of construction, sometimes streets are blocked all day. Do they have to have some kind of a permit for that?

AA: Sometimes they may just pop out their orange cones.** If it's a question of safety, however, like big cement trucks, they should apply for a permit with the street department. Those trucks only hold so much cement. For a big pour, like a slab, trucks may be rolling in all day.

** "Stuff Happens Dept." Case in point. This summer, Emilie got stuck, between 4^th SE and 5^th SE, mid-block, in a 5-minutes/block traffic jam heading east on Central toward the intersection with East Hennepin. It eased up as we neared 5th, and I could see people scrambling all over a pinch point where two lanes narrowed to one lane. Someone entering the construction site may have picked up a load on a bad pallet or taken a corner badly. Cracked pallet lumber and spilled construction blocks were tumbled all over the entrance to the site. Behind a swarm of orange cones, people were moving the debris as fast as they could.

A neighbor offered a compliment to CPS Rashid Ali. CPS Ali came to the Village Townhomes doing a security review. He pointed out many places where the landscaping could be improved to increase residents' safety. Thank you, Rashid! The townhouse committee will be acting on your suggestions.

QQ: He's heard that neighbors are concerned about shopping at the Quarry. Stories of carjackings have been in the paper. People are concerned about being accosted. Is any of that connected to the camp at the SW Corner of the parking lot?

AA: CPS Ali has been working with store owners about safety concerns. There have been moments and events, but the majority of people living there just want to "have a place" and to be left alone. There's been talk about the camp being disbanded, but there's no date of that yet. It's an ongoing conversation.

Our role in the police dept is concerned with keeping all people safe. We're working with the city on trash removal and similar issues. One path is to make sure these people can qualify for subsidized housing which will solve the camping issue. So far, the camp has not had major problems.

Ms. Hodne's report on the new Responder program was presented, see Part 1 of this report.

STATE OF THE PRECINCT

Inspector McGinty: Current state of the Precinct and plans for the immediate future.

Inspector McGinty: We're at 50 patrol officers, which is half of what we had just 18 months or two years ago. We have no one on the community response team. There are two people working on property crime, one Crime Prevention Specialist. Each shift has 15 persons on the average. That means we have 6 or 7 out there to patrol the entire Second Precinct. We have no extras to cover people who are out for extra training or for sick leave.

Inspector Loining had added overtime details to address our hotspots, carjackings, etc. Lt. Nelson and Inspector McGinty have expanded overtime details to better cover catalytic converter theft because that crime is growing in the 2nd Precinct.

The Inspector and Lt. Nelson focus on getting the right officers to the right places at the right times. We use our crime analysis unit so we can deploy resources intentionally. We don't want people just driving randomly around.

Hiring is a MPD challenge as it is for other forces around the metro area. We have authorization to have trainee classes of 40. We are not getting enough people to fill those slots. Not enough people sign up to apply, and some of those who do sign up don't pass their background checks.

A lawsuit has been filed against the city to get to 735 and we're a long way from that number. Meeting that number of staff has not been made easier by comments made by some elected officials and others, which appear in the papers and elsewhere. All officers want to know they have the support of elected officials.

The current officers have been working without a contract for nearly 33 months (2.75 years), which makes it harder to attract recruits. Entry pay is in the mid-$20s to low $30s. That makes it hard to get people to sign up. A contract will tell people what they're signing up for. Hopefully the city will sign that contract by the end of the month so things can start to move up.

My job is to make sure our 50 cops keep working for the MPD. Lt. Nelson and I will create an atmosphere where officers feel they are supported. It is a place where officers will meet the standards set by Chief Hoffmann, Lt. Nelson and I for treating our citizens with respect. We're also watching that officers don't take on too much overtime. Officers need to be rested and healthy so they can step up to doing their difficult job in a professional manner.

Right now, if you take senior officers (20-30 years' experience) out of the equation, the average officer is 1.5 to 2 years in the Department. They are well-trained but still relatively new to the MPD and to the Law Enforcement profession.

The Inspector and Lt. Nelson met with the three new City Council members in early February; we feel the meeting was productive. CM Rainville and Payne have been working for the city in the Office for Performance and Innovation; all three seem eager to make good things happen in the Second.

The Inspector will be attending neighborhood meetings in the coming months so he can meet people and create new relationships there, as well. He wants to hear your ideas, so bring them to the meetings. He has no problem attending difficult meetings or answering difficult questions. We have to work together to figure out how to use the resources we have to make the good things we want.

We are aware that the Second Precinct grows by more than 40,000 people every year as students come to the U of M. We need to maintain our professional relationship with the UMPD to keep those people safe over there, on Minneapolis property or on campus. UMPD Chief Clark is a former MPD officer; we have worked together before.

Inspector McGinty announced that Lt. Nelson will be going to the FBI academy this summer. She'll be gone for 3, 4 months. Congratulations Lt. Nelson!

Quast relayed Crime Statistics for the 2nd Precinct for the period 1/11-2/13, 2022, as reported on the MPD dashboard:

Part 1 Violent Crime:

Homicide = 0; Rape = 6; Robbery = 24; Agg. assault = 31, of which 9 were domestic assaults. Total = 61

Part 1 Property Crime:

Burglary = 26; Larceny = 231; Theft from MV = 142; Auto theft = 81; Arson = 1 Total= 339

All Part 1 total = 400

Part 2 - 156

Non UCR total = 239

The Second Precinct reported 13.47% of all city crime, but that percent is about 60% higher than our normal numbers

CPS Ali responded that Second Precinct residents could cut our crime rate by half if we all took away the opportunities for people to commit the crime. 70% of car thieves use the car keys left by owners to steal the car. Most of the theft from motor vehicles is because people leave possessions visible in the car. Not one of those thefts needs to happen. Theft of motor vehicles would go down if people would park in their garages or at least in their drive.

Catalytic converter theft can go down if people had cc-locks installed on their converters. Because this theft is now so prevalent, manufacturers are developing new devices. One device is an alarm that attaches to the converter; this must be done by a mechanic. If that's too expensive, a different device reacts to noise under the car (as the sound of the converter being sawed off). One of these devices responds with an alarm of 115-120 decibels, sufficient to harm hearing and cause ear pain. [EQ: See US CDC article: https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/hearing_loss/what_noises_cause_hearing_loss.html]

The most important message is to take steps to keep crime down. Historically winter brings crime down, but our numbers are going up. Whatever the reason for that, we need to emphasize that much of that crime can be prevented by residents if they're willing to take simple steps to do that. History tells us that crime will go up when spring arrives.

Quast referred to a story in the MNDaily that some students are nervous about seeing people in uniforms on campus (UMPD or MPD) and want people wearing those uniforms kept off campus. Those of us who have been around longer do not want to see the work coordinated by the two police departments to be lost. Inspector McGinty assured us all that the MPD/UMPD professional coordination and friendship will not be dissolved.

Probation Officer Ihrke reported on the success of law enforcement lobbyists in the State House. The MN Senate passed a bill supporting $1Million to support recruiting and incentives. There are other items involved with this bill; front line worker pay is tied up in there also. It does give hope. The $1M bill has passed the Senate and is going to the House.

Back to business in the 2nd Pct.: In the last month there were 21 felony assaults, 1 felony burglary, 5 felony drug cases, 1 kidnapping, 2 crim-sex, 1 property damage and 1 felony theft. That's 32 felonies charged in the 2nd Precinct last month. Additionally, there were 57 arrests in January.

The courts are catching up, figuring out a system to keep the court system going. They use only in person sentencing where there is a presumptive sentence. Jury trials and hearings leading to a conviction are being done on Zoom. The 4th Judicial District courts are catching up.

Adult corrections facility population is now down to about 80 people. Two years ago, we had almost 400 in there. Probation is being re-evaluated, however. Minnesota spends about $600,000 annually on probation and supervised release. Unfortunately, 70% of the people going on probation ultimately go back to jail because their probation is not successful.

There are a lot of problems with the process and we expect a lot more changes in the future. Minnesota does save money by not incarcerating people, but the people are not making a lot of progress. There is more change coming because of this.

Lt. Nelson reported for Mpls. Attorney Okoronkwo that everyone on his charge list has been charged. He is waiting for Court dates. It sounds like he is caught up.

Adjourn at 8PM.

Emilie Quast, board member

MPD Second Precinct Advisory Council (2-PAC)

Minneapolis MN 55418

e-quas@tc.umn.edu