Chris, you make these strong statements about Peter McLaughlin from your viewpoint as a resident of the Fulton neighborhood. It has never been a bastion of crime and thanks to the cities policy of concentration it never will. You sleep gently at night without fear that bullets will fly through your windows and someone with a gun will kick down your door. I wish I could say the same. I wish the people in Jordan and Hawthorne and East or Midtown Phillips could say the same. We who live with the "crime problem" you infer doesn't exist don't care about the numbers. It's like Greg Reinhardt said "when you are the victim of a violent crime, one is too many". As a victim of crime on more than one occasion myself I care that my elected officials will at least listen to my concerns and my suggestions for improving the situation. I don't think I am alone in these feelings. Being told that I am safe if I don't live a high risk life style is insulting. To me and to my family members who have all been victims of crime. The only high risk life style I am leading is to live in an inner-city neighborhood. After cutting crime prevention and intervention services for a 3 year period, I listened to the mayor call a press conference to announce that he will add more cops. That was like listening to a used car dealer tell me he will wash my car after he sold me a lemon. I have offered the mayor what I believe are concrete suggestions for beginning to address the crime problems. You notice I didn't say solving, I said beginning to address them. I even posted them to this list on more than once occasion. They have been ignored. I have watched the Weed and Seed group in Midtown and East Phillips work on countless initiatives with charts, graphs, statistics and enough information to write a masters thesis only to watch them be ignored. Peter McLaughlin didn't ignore them. Peter worked to get the probation officers stationed at the precinct level. That has had a huge impact on improving the revolving door issues. These are not the criminals Guy Gambill refers to that have histories of primarily "nuisance crimes". These are the hard core criminals that have multiple arrests for felonies on their "rap sheets". Criminals like Terry McMasters. This is the guy who terrorized a woman in Phillips over a several year period. His crime spree with her began with him and his gangster buddies taking over her house while she was on Thanksgiving vacation. They trashed it and she got it back in shambles. This mans continued harassment and threats to her were unbelievable. This went on over a several year period. The fact that she has continued to live where she does amazes me. When Mr. McMasters was finally arrested for the umpteenth time the Court Watch folks and the Weed and Seed folks truly believed that had a chance t o send him away for at least a little while. The court watch folks and myself witnessed the courthouse gamesmanship of the defense attorneys and prosecuting attorneys bidding for this man's length of sentence. There is a point system and evidently this man didn't have enough points to give him a longer sentence. It appeared as if he would serve no time at all. I don't claim to understand how the whole point system works but I was astonished to find that this man with his lengthy criminal record did not have enough points to qualify. When it came time to sentence this man, the court watch people, the weed and seed people and myself showed up at court to encourage through our presence a sentence that included some incarceration for this man. We had been told that in all likelyhood, Mr. McMasters would not go to jail at all. Peter McLaughlin showed up for what was to be the sentencing hearing. It was postponed. At the next hearing where the actual sentencing took place, the judge re ad an e-mail from Peter McLaughlin to the court. The judge stated that when a Hennepin County Commissioner takes time from his busy schedule to appear in person in the courtroom and send a letter, he takes the time to listen. Because of Peter's advocacy on this issue, this man received the maximum sentence he could get for his most recent crime. It wasn't long enough for me but at least he would be off the streets for awhile and the woman in Phillips could sleep peacefully. No Peter's advocacy in these situations didn't solve all the crime problems in the world. No they didn't put more cops on the streets. But what it has done for me is make me feel like he really cares about the problem and is willing to explore and implement truthful and real solutions to the problems and not just spew rhetoric for another fleeting media moment. The good news is.......it's finally raining. Barb Lickness Whittier
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