Before anyone starts giving and taking false credit for this "Strike" on the gangs. Perhaps taking credit where it is not deserved, remember that this was an action of the Gang Strike Force and included police officers from many jurisdictions. That "Strike Force" was where Mike Martin was banished to. It is only luck that put the best Minneapolis Cop there instead of off the force and on the street. Not that Mike Martin would have remained there long because he could be Chief of Police in most big cities. Our own police department is still undermanned, and still needs more police officers on the street and smarter policing methods being used.
Mike Martin was in no small part responsible for bringing the community and police together to attack drug dealing and gangs on the Southside of Minneapolis. I have written on this "List" before how much respect Mike gets from the Police officers and from community. Mike understands that creating that relationship between officers and community members gives the appreciation and respect for police officers by the community and that this in turn creates the morale that encourages officers to take ownership of that community and do better jobs. Mike Martin also understands that you identify the "Real" criminals and pursue them with the same passion that they have to make their money.
We in my community are proud to say Mike Martin was "OUR" main cop and once identified us as "HIS" community and worked for us. The Third Precinct was the pits, where no officer wanted to be, until we got Mike Martin. After that it was where the best officers wanted to be. Mike knew how to cover the backs of both "his" officers and "his" community.
Then "Lieutenant" Mike Martin once stood in front of our community meeting and told a hundred people that he had once been charged with moving the drug dealers out of Whittier and across the bridges over I-35, and now he was promising to move the drug dealers out of the Third Precinct. That he "did not care what bridge they went across, but they were going to be moved some where out of "His " community, or they were going to be going to jail". If Minneapolis wants to clean up the Northside and keep the Drug-Gangs from coming back to the Central or Phillips Neighborhoods then allow Capt. Mike Martin to have the man-power, and just as important, the "Command" he needs. Then the bridge Mike will move the drug dealers across will be the I-94 St Croix bridge, or the I-35 bridge over the Minnesota.
You identify the criminal enemy and you hunt them down wherever they go. Minneapolis has become the place know around the country by criminals as the place to make good profits with little risk from the courts. I think we should provide Mike Martin with the resources to make Minneapolis the last place a criminal "businessman" wants to come to.
Speaking of businessmen, and organized crime, what is the status of the Sabri sentencing? Still on for May 3rd? Anyone know if the Feds or the State is investigating the organized nature of his crime activities so he can be charged under the racketeering laws and the proceeds of his criminal activities confiscated? That's how they stopped Ferris Alexander. What irony if Sabri's illegal activities around Ferris Alexander's property also got it confiscated again and these new arrogant criminals in jail. We will perhaps see what price a Federal judge places on bribing Minneapolis Politicians for ones profit. I know Minneapolis Politicians are cheap in money, but perhaps an honest judge with integrity might just make the price in years high. How can we expect street kids to obey the law when they see arrogant criminals strut into a Federal Court believing they can "BUY" our system and keep the profits. A drug dealer's money is always confiscated for even petty crimes, should some great criminal leech upon our communities be allowed to keep his ill-gotten criminal gains of millions of dollars and serve only a few years? I do not think so, and neither should a judge! Mr. Sabri should be an example for young people that our justice can not be bought and even rich businessmen who think they are the new strutting AL Capone will go to jail for a long time.
Jim Graham, Ventura Village
"It is always an utter folly to underestimate the lure and attraction of a great evil. The whitened bones of their victims litter the highways and byways of mankind’s history. Stopped only by the few willing to pay the ultimate price and make a stand."
- Toe
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