An inner-city high school? The University of Minnesota.
Parents are demanding the way safety is handled around the University of Minnesota change before students return this fall.
Crime has risen 45 percent in nearby neighborhoods over the last four years.
Why might that be? There was the extensive police defunding movement and the general culture of BLM-fed pro-crime lawlessness.
These are the consequences.
Brian Peck, a parent who says he started a nonprofit called Campus Safety Coalition, shared at the forum something his son’s said to him.
“‘Mom and Dad, do you know that every single day I wake up to go to class I’m scared for my life? I don’t know if I’m going to get mugged, shot or beaten up,'” Peck said.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey attended the forum, along with Minneapolis Police Interim Chief Amelia Huffman and University of Minnesota Police Chief Matt Clark.
“We need to be relying more on technology and have invested millions of dollars in cameras to make sure that whether it’s investigative or preemptive/prevention work, we can have cameras set up,” Frey said.
Cameras aren’t going to arrest or lock anyone up. But let’s recall that the ballot measure to begin dismantling the police failed by a narrow 54-43 margin. And it wasn’t all that long ago that Frey was being booed for refusing to immediately defund the police.
The city and university are also recruiting for depleted police forces with increased salaries and retention bonuses.
“We adjust the work that we do based on crime trends and crime patterns, and that does include enforcement activity, but it tends to be focused more on serious crime and serious offenders,” Huffman said.
Collaboration between MPD and campus police was emphasized, and many parents at the meeting felt more positive rhetoric surrounding officers would help in hiring.
What a difference a little 45% increase in crime makes.
somehistory says
Have they thought of calling i elmi in to stand on the carpet and answer some difficult questions?
The snake wanted to defund the police, and she wanted her bro’s who are terrorists to get an easy off.
She should be called in and made to answer for her “rep” duties she is failing to do.
MN was once known for its “10 thousand” lakes. Now, there is a giant snake, and some smaller ones…but a lot of smaller ones… how many more?…who can make the state a place to be afraid..
gravenimage says
Minneapolis used to be one of the safest large cities in America–not so now with the huge invasion of Somali Muslims and this sort of insanity. In most categories of crime, Minnesota now ranks 25th out of 50 states–and it isn’t because other places have gotten safer.
somehistory says
the ruining of the earth…and not by a changing climate…but by the allowing of lawlessness to take over…is in full swing.
gravenimage says
Grimly true, Somehistory.
Keith O says
This is an easy fix, all they have to do is declare the entire university area a “gun free zone”, create more “safe spaces” and put up more signs saying violence won’t be tolerated. That should reduce the crime rates.
I’m sure that all those violent thugs that the Demoncraps have encouraged will see the error of their ways and go skipping off into the distance holding hands and singing kumbya.
gravenimage says
Of course, it already is…
somehistory says
I read of a seven-year-old who drew…could have been an assignment…a blm emblem .. and added the words “all Lives.” She was punished by having no recess, and is not allowed to draw any longer in class.
Her mom found out a year after it happened through another parent, and the school won’t try to even apologize, but have made the claim that they are working on a resolution.
schools…from elementary to the universities …are festering pools of evil.
.
Keith O says
Pretty much.
No longer about education, now about political correctness and indoctrination.
gravenimage says
Terrible, Somehistory.
gravenimage says
‘Every Single Day I Wake Up To Go To Class I’m Scared for My Life’
…………………………….
And this 45% rise in crime happened even without a *full* defunding of the police–rhetoric and bad policies will do that. It could, of course, be even worse.
Note that in the wake of the George Floyd case that *9 out of the 13 Minneapolis City Council members* vowed to abolish the police entirely, and to spend the police budge on social programs. It didn’t matter that most Minneapolis residents, *including in the Black community*, opposed any reduction in the size of the police force.
Some police officers left or took early retirement, and the city government was not going to allocate any money for training new police. In just a few months, the department lost 200 officers. Then, 155 other officers are still technically with the department, but are on long-term leave following injuries or stress incurred in the riots.
The police department went from 851 officers in 2019 to just 638 officers in just a few months.
The City Council responded to this crisis by seizing $11.4 million of the police budget earmarked for police recruitment and for paying overtime, so the department didn’t even have this option.
Then there was that infamous ballot measure, that would have stripped the police department of having *any* minimum staffing levels, would have also abolished the police department of its name, rebranding it the “Department of Public Safety”–even though public safety more often refers to matters dealing with public health, fire safety, and maintaining roads and bridges than it does policing.
“Violence prevention” programs were put in place in 2020.
Of course Ilhan Omar supported this insanity. She denounced the city’s police force as “inherently beyond reform”.
She doesn’t of course want to see any protection for Infidels.
Of course, skyrocketing crime and violence was the predictable result of this. Some of these naive fools were surprised at the outcome. Worse yet, it is likely that some actually *wanted* to see this result.
OLD GUY says
The migration invasion of America as in Europe will destroy the American life style and our freedoms. Without law and order no one but the elite will be safe and even they will fall to the corruption and growing political criminal organizations running our cities. No one will be safe, but we will all use the correct language when addressing each others gender. Gotta do whats important. We need some of that old western law an order, if your caught red handed stealing the horse or killing another person you get a quick one day trial and then hang from the oak tree. That deters Crime not a free pass because you mommy says you were always such a good boy.
JHL says
I was graduated from the U of M, 1989. It wasn’t that way then, but know I don’t even visit Minneapolis. Minnesota is way too far left. The pendulum needs to swing back.
gravenimage says
So sad, JHL.
Jim says
I think that the City Council at first wanted to defund the police, but they did not do so after all. But the police force seems to be weakened in many ways anyway, as some of the comments say, and based on some of the reports on the Internet I have read. I read as well that the U of M has also gone woke. It was not that way when I was a student in the 70s and 80s. I recall an American history course where it seemed that everything about the US was bad. The prof. managed to find bad intentions and behavior behind everything. However, he did say he did not thinkAmerica was so bad in general. He was not like Howard Zinn. But things were different then in many ways The welfare system in the city is very generous, and it used to be a pretty safe city. Perhaps that attracted some poor people to the city who were not all ideal citizens Now there seem to be a lot of problems. I have heard that locksmiths are working overtime to keep up with demand by people afraid of being robbed. My brother lives in the suburbs, and there was an armed carjack at a fast food outlet near his home. Even the suburbs are not so safe.