Star Minneapolis cop to lead state Public Safety By: . . Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder Originally posted 3/5/2003
But should communities of color feel safer with this man at the helm?
By Abdel Shakur Staff Writer
Incoming Public Safety Commissioner Richard Stanek has quite the personnel record after 17 years with the Minneapolis Police Department. His two-inch-thick file is filled with over 40 letters of commendation, awards, and specialized training.
http://www.spokesman-recorder.com/news/Article/Article.asp?NewsID=23572&sID=4
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No, communities of color should not feel safer, nor will they be safer. Nor will immigrants, the poor, the defenseless.
Seeing this man's appointment was one of those heart sinking moments. The only consolation I took out of the 2002 election was that Charlie Weaver would no longer be hounding battered women groups to cut off funding for rape and abuse counseling, protection order enforcement and protecting teen girls from gang-raping, drug addicting, brain washing pimps.
Commissioner/Representative/Inspector Stanek is abysmal when it comes to civil liberties and civil rights. He also has some very serious troubles differentiating his various jobs and not conflicting.
The bill to repeal the residency rerquirement for MPD officers directly benefitted his ideas of what his underlings should be like - and look like. He has often said that he feels much more like he represents the people of Maple Grove (where he was elected) in ALL his roles, than he does the citizenry of Mpls. That includes making sure suburanites get good jobs keeping citydwellers in line - the antithesis of community policing.
I attended an MPR sponsored event on discrimination in the criminal justice system in which Stanek was attending as the Chair of the House Public Safety Committee. He attended wearing his uniform, badge and gun - completely inappropriate.
At every opportunity, he denied that there was bias of any sort except in exceptionally rare individual incidents. This contradicted the rest of the panel - District Court Judge Tanya Bransford, St. Paul PD Chief Finney, the Hennepin County Public Defender, and EVEN then Corrections Commissioner Cheryl Ramstead Hvass(!), who at one point looked at Stanek with such incredulity that I thought she would choke on her coffee. It even left Gary Eichten speechless a couple times - no minor feat.
I watched a goodly chunk of the late night debate on the profiling bill between Greg Gray and Stanek. I was ashamed to be a Minnesotan that night. Not only did Stanek dismiss every concern that Gray had about how a civil rights bill was conveniently (and quite intentionally) turned into pork barrel spending for police departments (including his own), but not a single DFLer came to Gray's aid in the debate. Shameful.
This appointment bodes ill for any hopes of turning around Minnesota's shameful record of racial discrimination in the criminal justice system, the protection of our ever diminishing civil liberties, or the defense of those most vulnerable to the abuses of power.
Eric Oines North Minneapolis
"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall - think of it, always."
~ Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948), Agitator
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