I am outraged that Governor Pawlenty has never seen fit to using the media to complain far and loud about how the Hennepin County Judges routinely abdicate from the minimum required sentencing guidelines established by the State of Minnesota when they are dealing with violent criminals and inner-city drug dealers. He has stood by silently while this travesty has been allowed to continue for years. So has the legislature, including the entire Minneapolis delegation. Last night I attended the Community Issues meeting of my neighborhood. A fabulous and hard working police Lt. attended the meeting to give a presentation on crime in Whittier. I am not giving her name because I don't want any flack to fall back on her for her honest assessment. She gave a long dissertation of what the Community Response Team is responsible for in any given day. The list went way beyond my sense of reason but hey that's irrelevant. At the conclusion of her presentation she asked the audience for their help. She asked that we plead with the Hennepin County Judges to stop letting the criminals back out on the street on a routine basis and to put pressure on them to send some of these criminals to prison. She said that it is the same 5-10% of the criminals that are committing most of the crimes. She said her officers are arresting them over and over and over again. She gave pointed examples of violent crimes that occur ed which may have been prevented if that criminal had been incarcerated in the first place. She said if her officers were not continually bogged down in arresting the same people all the time the entire police force could do with way less officers. Ya know, the people like Terry McMasters and others that have multiple arrests on their record and are allowed to continue terrorizing communities like mine. You would think our mayor and city council members would want to jump on that fact. If th e city could save money in the police budget by documenting how much we are paying to arrest the same people over and over and over again maybe seeing some dollar signs might hit home with some of these judges. I am not talking about misdemeanor crimes here. I am talking felonies. We saw how quickly people started to pay attention when the crystal meth became a problem in suburban and rural communities. The legislators were ready to change the law to ensure the crystal meth criminals went to jail at the expense of the crack heads. Because we all know crack is largely an inner-city crime and who cares about the inner-city? They were even getting help in their quest from a legislator in North Minneapolis. I get a little sick of the double standard. What's not o.k. in Stillwater is just fine in Whittier or Phillips or Jordan or Hawthorne. Barb Lickness Whittier
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