Howie Padilla's June 13th account in the StarTribune
of the event held on Tuesday evening, June 12th in
commemoration of the lives of Rocco Dandrea,
Alfred(Abuka)Sanders, and Barbara Schneider was
misleading on several accounts.
First: When he spoke of the crowd in attendance, it
was a good number over 100 people. The Minneapolis
police officers he refers to were exactly two, Deputy
Chief Greg Hestness and Sgt Ron Bellendier, director
of the police academy. The City Councilmembers he
refers to was one lone CM, Brian Herron, who is a
member of the Friends of Barbara Schneider Foundation.
The state representatives he refers to was, once
again, one lone representative, Mindy Greiling of
Roseville. Our Mayor, who received an invitation
several weeks prior, did not attend.
Second: Mr. Padilla would have one believe by the
prominence he accorded Deputy Chief Hestness in his
report, the quotes he chose from John Trepp, and the
failure to mention other speakers and elements of the
program that it was one great love fest.
While the evening was meant to be an evening devoted
to a healing of the community caused by the deaths of
these three individuals, it was not meant to disguise
the very real anger many still feel at the conduct of
the political and police hierarchy of the city, who,
even to this day will not accept their part of the
responsibility for these tragedies.
While John Trepp did say "we do a poor job of helping
law enforcement prepare for these situations", he also
stated "not even the Taliban would have dispatched a
firing squad to deal with a small woman playing her
radio loudly."
Mr. Trepp also pointed out that our country lags far
behind many other countries in the civilized world in
how we serve our mentally ill population.
For instance, there are more mentally ill people in
prisons(26% of Minnesota's prison population are
mentally ill) than in hospitals and there are more
mentally ill people homeless on the streets of America
than there are under care in hospitals or therapeutic
environments.
Third: Deputy Chief Hestness spoke of his own anguish
at these deaths. A major part of his function in the
Internal Services Division of MPD is to oversee the
training curriculum. He also spoke of his wife, a 26
year employeee of Hennepin County Social Services, who
maintains a large psychiatric caseload and his
personal familiarity with the mentally ill.
His main purpose at the event, aside from what I
believe to be an honest expression of real personal
concerns and feelings, was to announce a hastily
arranged community forum featuring Mayor Sayles-Belton
to be held on June 27th at Plymouth Congregational
Church to review the progress MPD has made in their
new training regimen and "to take comments from the
citizens."
Call me cynical, call me whatever you like, but I was
irate that D.C. Hestness took this opportunity to make
what was essentially a public relations announcement
meant to further the image of the Mayor and police
department. That police were in attendance was a good
thing; the announcement was in poor taste.
That the StarTribune did such a poor job of reporting
the true nature of the event which featured prayers
and music and the reading of a wonderfully heartfelt
letter from Zelda Schneider, Barbara's mother, and
gave such prominence to irrelevancies was extremely
poor taste.
Tim Connolly
Friends of Barbara Schneider Foundation
Home address: 66 So 12th Street
Mpls MN 55403
612.339.4557
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