At 05:51 AM 8/27/02 -0500, Shawn Lewis wrote: >Minneapolis police chief agreed to fund patrols after melee >Chris Graves and Terry Collins >Star Tribune > >Published Aug 27, 2002 > >Minneapolis Police Chief Robert Olson agreed >to provide up to $6,000 to pay citizens >who patrolled a north Minneapolis neighborhood >last weekend to help ease community tensions >after a melee touched off by a shooting in >which police accidentally wounded a boy. > >http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/3191255.html > >Shawn Lewis, Field Neighborhood
Yeah, I knew it was going to come down to this. from the article: Olson said he met with Moss, a community activist, just hours after a melee erupted in the Jordan neighborhood Thursday night. Bottles and rocks were hurled, several journalists and passersby were hurt, a car was burned, and at least one business and a home were damaged. "We sat down and had a conversation, a good conversation," Olson said Monday. "I asked what can we do?" Moss suggested that he could get people to walk through the neighborhood to talk to residents and mediate potential disputes that could boil over into another disturbance. Moss said he would like to pay those who walked in the patrols, Olson said. "We have a pressure cooker here," the chief said. "I told him I could fund things over the weekend very quickly." ============================================= Now isn't it the Police's job to patrol the streets? In Judith Borger's recent story: http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/2002/08/24/news/local/3927308.htm I wonder how the neighbors in Jordan who were quoted in Borger's article feel about Spike Moss and the City Inc getting a contract to patrol their neighborhood. from Borger's article: Thursday's events left folks of varying viewpoints angry. "People blame the police, even though most know that was a drug house," said Greta Johnson, an African-American who has lived in the neighborhood four years. Events, she said, have made her all the more committed to continue to work with the neighborhood group that had picketed the very house that was raided. "I don't want all the hard work we've done to go away," Johnson said. Other neighbors said they feel the same way. <snip> Johnson, however, says she is scared as well as angry. She found herself in a confrontation Thursday night with a neighbor who was telling a TV camera crew that the raided house was not a drug marketplace. "I asked her where she got her information," Johnson said. "Then she got in my face," said Johnson, who stands 5 feet 4 inches and weighs 140 pounds. "She was... huge. But I just stood there." When someone grabbed her hair and yanked her head back, Dennis Plante, Johnson's husband, who is white, stepped in and separated the women. Anne McCandless, a white retired Minneapolis police sergeant who has lived in the neighborhood for 20 years, said she plans to stay. "I'm not leaving because of some jerks who are passing through," she said of troublemakers from outside. Neither is Kevin Eggleston, who lives with his mother at 26th Street and Logan Avenue North. Eggleston got a call while on his job as a Minnesota Department of Transportation worker that there was trouble near his home. When Eggleston, who is black, and a white co-worker went to the home to check on Eggleston's mother, the crowd tried to attack the co-worker because he was white, said Eggleston, who suffered a bruised arm. "I noticed that there were a lot of strange faces that I know weren't from around here," Eggleston said. "I'm not taking blame totally away from the neighbors, but there were a lot of people here not from the immediate neighborhood. I heard one guy say he came by after he got a call on his pager." There was also a great deal of sentiment in the neighborhood against perceived outsider Spike Moss, a community activist who escorted seven witnesses to the drug bust to a meeting with city officials Friday. "He is not the leader of our community," said Johnson. "He is the leader of an angry mob. He doesn't even live in our neighborhood." Jordan neighbors worry that Moss sends a message that the neighborhood opposes the police in efforts to stop drug traffic in the neighborhood. "We have to tell drug dealers, 'You can't terrorize our neighborhood,' " said Samuels. Neighbors say Moss never attends community meetings where constructive measures for improving the neighborhood are discussed. "He only shows up when there's trouble, and he never shows up when he knows he can't stir things up," McCandless said. ====================== So my question is, why isn't Moss at these other meetings? Why is he only around when there is media? It seems to me that funding Moss is funding the problem and not the solution. Eva Eva Young Near North Minneapolis "You do not have the right to never be offended. This country is based on freedom, and that means freedom for everyone - not just you! You may leave the room, turn the channel, express a different opinion, etc., but the world is full of idiots, and probably always will be." --Article II of the Bill of Non-Rights. _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
