The Postal Service had a long and cordial relationship with Minneapolis' Police and other law enforcement agencies. Over the years they've provided security and traffic control for us and we've blocked traffic for them, provided sign language interpreters, and transported and stored evidence for them. Many of our drivers and dispatchers use scanners to keep us informed of accidents and violent crimes in process. We operate trucks through Minneapolis' worst and best neighborhoods, and it was helpful to know if a violent felon, etc.. was on the loose and alert our drivers so that they could take appropriate actions to insure their safety.
On to the even worse news from MPD, murders being a bit much to bury even for MPD's junkyard dog public relations unit. If a postal worker was brutally murdered you'd see the 'hood where it happened swarming with federal law enforcement. Within days you'd see policy changes or else the mail wouldn't move. If a second postal worker was murdered in less than a month you'd see a wildcat strike and the mail wouldn't move 'til all the perps were in custody.
Apparently this city puts a lower value on immigrant taxi driver's lives. It's bad enough that we've licensed such a glut of taxis that they sit for hours waiting for fares. As such, it's no wonder tthat at the end of shift desperate drivers are forced to take questionable fares to Minneapolis' worst 'hoods. By those hours even Metro Transit has retreated to their bus barns, despite being equiped with 2 way radio with GPS and panic buttons, cameras, and their own police force.
Minneapolis taxi drivers have threatened a strike over these slayings and I will support them. Perhaps when downtown businessmen have to take the bus like the rest of us and a convention or two gets cancelled this city will protect and serve all it's workers.
abandoned in Hawthorne,
Dyna Sluyter
TEMPORARY REMINDER: 1. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. 2. If you don't like what's being discussed here, don't complain - change the subject (Mpls-specific, of course.)
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