Timothy Connolly wrote:
"As to Rich McMartin's comments relative to Lyndale neighborhood and its
improvement I must point out that CODEFOR did not come on line until 1998
and by then murder and crime rates had already dropped from the all-time
highs of '94-'95."
I might've missed an earlier post, or else Rich's comments on Lyndale were
off-list?--anyway, having lived through the worst and now much better times
in Lyndale (1987 to present) my 2 cents are this: We saw large drops in
crime before CODEFOR, in a sense because we were practising CODEFOR before
it came to the city--working with the 5th Precinct as directly as a
neighborhood could, sifting out tried-and-ineffective solutions from ideas
that worked. We were meeting bi-weekly to look over crime patterns and
anyone who came to the meeting--police, residents, business owners, rental
property owners--had to participate in the solution. Sure, there was a lot
of whining but the loudest whiners got the toughest assignments, e.g.,
calling the landlord who had not been doing criminal background checks on
their tenants, walking with our crime watch group through the drug markets,
working with city councilmembers on regulating pay phones which were not
serving the phoneless poor but rather only drug dealers...
This was all before I joined the MPD and during which time I laughed at
anyone who suggested I apply for this job. But given the 7+ years of
cooperative effort and seeing it come to fruition, I'll take any chief who
will continue with CODEFOR, regardless of whether it was his idea or not.
Of course, I'm biased because Chief Olson expanded our unit by 50% within
year of taking office.
When I describe CODEFOR to those in my district, I say, Think of it as
Continuous Quality Improvement as applied to Law Enforcement. That
continuous improvement can't come without community participation in
soliving crime problems in our community.
CPS Luther Krueger 673-2923 mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Lyndale, 8th Ward
