I just came out of the Olson reappointment hearing. Everytime I go to one of those things I feel debased by the entire process. First of all, you're given two minutes to speak. Hell, I could speak for an hour and still feel like I had not given the subject full consideration. There is so much disinformation floating in the air that it would take just one hour to clear the fog much less propose any solutions or speak in a positive vein. It's like going to the Natl. Convention of Sycophants, that's ass kissers to those perhaps turning to their dictionaries. O.K. So Amy Mayron in the PiPress today writes that the MPD spent $500,000 on ISAG. God bless her and her paper for writing something while the hometeam pumps orange smoke into the room, but her data comes from the MPD reports. Look at the budget of the city! MPD missed the mark by $1,765,900. I'm guessing the $1.15 million figure people have bandied about is conservative and who knows if that covers the costs associated with prosecution which by the way is put on hold til all the appellate issues have been worked out. Then you have Deputy Chief Greg Hestness on radio this morning talking bout the crime rate being the lowest in Minneapolis since 1966 like Olson is responsible for all of it. I called my brother this morning to ask what figures there were on growth in the private security business. It's booming. About 15% growth per year. What efect do you think that has on crime rates. I mean when Allina has a small force that patrols its facilities that has an effect on crime. Believe me, I know. How about the fact that you can barely go to the john anymore without having a camera poking you in the face. Once again how do you think that affects crime. How about police intelligence. Remember a story in the Strib one sunday that showed arrest rates of African Americans relative to charges being filed and cases being dropped. Ever been in jail? What's the first thing they do when they take you out of holding before booking you. That's right! get your prints and picture. When you hear the next puff piece on the great police work of MPD catching a guy who has been filmed beating up an MTC driver, think about how they did it. Hell, who cares about all the niceties. The important part is they took the guy off the street. It's a tempting thought to entertain but when you have falsely imprisoned a person who may not have done anything and surreptitously started a file on him and subsequently busted him that's a little like cheating on a test. Yes? Most people don't care about this because they think it will never happen to them. Sam Grabarski and Kent Warden from the Downtown Council and Downtown Bldg. MGRS. Assn. respectively dont care. They think the Chief did a great job with ISAG. Dario Anselmo thinks the Chief and the Downtown Command are doing a great job fighting crime in the Warehouse District. Well when I hung out in the Warehouse District and silently sipped coca-cola at the New French there was no crime downtown. It didn't star occuring til Dario Anselmo and the like started opening sports bar, pseudo hip joints, and tittie bars that crime appeared. Pour that much booze down people's gullets and anything is bound to happen. Don't get me wrong here. I'm no prohibitionists. Quite the contrary I think repression creates more problems than it will ever solve. I think bars downtown ought to be open til the cows come home if they choose. If we did that we could probably cut the downtown command in half by removing the frantic nature of the scene. Gotta get a drnk quick, gotta get a girl or boy by one, all that stuff. But I've digressed. As usual. I have more to say. I must sound like a broken record but I lived through the late 60's. The images of police beating people, turning their dogs on them, and conducting intelligence activities against citizens stay with me. Being in the Washington D.C. office of the Black Panther Party and seeing sandbagged walls stays with me. The death of Mark Hampton in Chicago stays with me. The image of Al Sanders stays with me. But most of all, the image of sister Barbara Schneider, naked and terrified, shouting Satan's Squad above the din of her radio, backed into the corner of her bedroom, HER BEDROOM FOR GOD'S SAKE, being shot nine times will never leave me. And for that, if for no other reason, this whining mealy mouthed Police Chief ought to be fired for putting his officers in that position by not providing anything more than four hours of "mental illness training" and instilling a wild west, charge at all cost, attitude. And if your mayor and your council won't do it, I say throw the lot of them out of office. That's what I'll be working toward the next ten months. You ain't heard nothing yet! Tim Connolly Ward 7 __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos - Share your holiday photos online! http://photos.yahoo.com/
