The meeting was called to order at 6:17 by Emilie Quast. 16 attenders.
Our speaker was Kimberly Simmonds from Minneapolis 311 Services, as reported in part 1.
COURTWATCH: Judi Cole, Hennepin County Atty’s Office gave us the updates.
This is Judi’s last report. She has transferred back to Adult Prosecution. Sarah Becker has also left the 2nd Precinct (and moved to the 5th). In January, we will receive updates from Kerri Kovalesky (City Atty) and Sandra Filardo, (Cnty Atty.)
Ronald Bailey, 2nd degree murder charge; recently had a 20-02 hearing which is to determine if someone can be charged; he was found to be mentally unfit. He has a hearing on 11-26 and it’s presumed he will be found “guilty but not guilty by reason of mental illness”; there will be a hearing which should lead to an automatic commitment to St. Peter. It’s actually difficult to get this judgment under rule 20-02 which is not handed out easily.
Samuel Hasse has some city and county cases pending, and is not allowed within 3 blocks of Dinkytown Wine and Spirits–he’s well known in the area. He has 3 city cases, the newest from October, and all are in Marcy Holmes. Hasse’s omnibus hearing was on 11/20 so we’ll hear more at the next Courtwatch. Daniel Heacock was found incompetent in May of 2018 for a 3rd degree burglary charge; he will have a hearing in May 2019 to determine his competency status. Cody Horton had a sentencing hearing on 11-19, the burglary was dismissed because he didn’t break in with intent to commit a crime although kicking in the door caused fear in the victim; because of no intent to burglarize, the county attorney and the defense agreed the judge was unlikely to find that burglary was Mr. Horton’s intent and would dismiss the charge. Curtis Laroque one case was dismissed and he has completed probation. James Zaccardi remains on probation until 5/24/21 and is apparently keeping the terms of probation but has a 11/27 hearing for 5th degree drug possession, which occurred on 10/29 and could impact his probation. Michael Zaccardi has an 11-27 omnibus hearing for 3rd degree assault.
Joshua Poplawski had a review hearing on 11/20 regarding his HOMES court conditions; we have not yet heard what happened.
Maxim Chance is on probation until 4/19 and is keeping terms of probation. Johnny Hall remains on probation until 9/20 and has no updates so is apparently keeping to the terms of probation. Paula Heille continues to meet the terms of probation, which will be through 7/12/21. Bryan Holmes just completed probation on the 16th of November. Mahad Ismail remains on probation to 7/29/19 with no updates. Robert Schroeder remains on probation to 3/20/19 and has no updates.
Dwayne Miles 5th degree drug charge was dismissed on 10/29. [removed from Court Watch]
Alfonso Seals will be in St. Cloud until 7/13/20 and was removed from Court Watch.
Left off Court Watch list by accident: Jonell Butler and Natalie Box. Butler was charged with three robberies and an aggravated assault (which put someone in the hospital) on the night of Oct 5-6 in Marcy-Holmes and near NE Minneapolis. Box accompanied and abetted him but also has her own arson charge from earlier in the year when she set fire to a roommate’s belongings in a shelter. Butler will have a jury trial on January 14, while Box has a hearing on December 4. Again, we’ll be hearing how that works out in January.
QUESTION ABOUT MPD COMMUNICATION: Nick Juarez reported: Block club leaders have asked why they are no longer receiving crime alerts. The city switched to a new system in June that will make much more information available but the new system can’t yet send out notices. The City Council received complaints that the old notice forms were used to profile minorities and the CC is looking into that allegation to see if the notices comply with city ordinances. There was a complaint that notices were being used to target minorities. If the Council determines there was no discrimination or violation, we’ll be able to send them out again. However that works out, Block Club leaders and others can still receive information by subscribing to the new Crime Alert system.so we know what’s going on in our areas. Search “raids online” and enter your address. Again, when police reports are generated, we’ll send you an email alert. That kind of replaces the block leader alerts for now. OR, go to: http://www.minneapolismn.gov/police/crimealert/police_crimealert_signup [EQ: that is badly formatted. You can’t see it, but there are two underscores in there, which show up as blanks. It is actually police_crimealert_signup, I found the sign up rather clunky but I am not adept with new systems. If you have a problem, contact subscriberhelp.govdelivery.com
Inspector Loining reported: It’s the time of the year to look back on what we’ve accomplished over the year and to plan on what we’re going to do in the coming year. Among them, the Inspector wants to have a better map for presentation. What is going up is property crimes in many areas. One area of concern is Marcy-Holmes, especially the area east of the freeway. We have a lot of college students moving in and people don’t really know each other, don’t secure their doors or windows. We are trying to drive the message home, “Please Folks, watch your phones, lock your doors, watch who is coming or going.” We have additional patrols in the area down there and extending into SE Como. Our CPS’s have been sending out blasts with the messages to lock up and be aware. We have had some success down there, and had no burglaries over one weekend. Northeast, especially Holland had some burglaries of houses and garages, but we made one arrest, of a juvenile who did a burglary of an occupied dwelling, took the car and drove it home. He was picked up when his mother was spotted walking away from the car(!). When he was taken in he confessed and is now in line to get some of the assistance he needs. That and a few others were key arrests, and the area has settled down a bit.
Northeast over 4-7 weeks had a rise in burglary of garages. We found a suspect who was driving a vehicle that he’d use to force open the garage doors, by popping the doors off their tracks. So they could steal stuff. We used public information officer to watch for suspicious activity. Months ago Audubon and Waite Park n’hoods. That time it was a white SUV. We made a key arrest and the burglaries dried up. The new vehicle is a grey 2-door pickup truck which has been spotted in the area of the garage burglaries. So now it’s starting up again with the new vehicle. We’ll start by placing our “target” signs there to increase awareness, along with our focused door knocking. Additionally we have door hangers if officers notice an open garage and no one is around –they are also to increase citizen awareness. People are looking into garages to steal snowblowers, bikes, anything they can sell to get their fix.
We have a new windshield flyer. This one has a blue stripe. When we have time we stop to talk to people on how to not become a victim, take the valuables out of your car, into the house. That’s even safer than “Junk in the Trunk”.
Nick Juarez had a few words about package thefts which rise at this time of year. If you know you have something coming from Amazon or UPS, ask them to leave at the rear door, have a neighbor pick it up. Amazon has lock boxes all over the city — you get a code and you can pick up your packages. We had a couple of guys just riding their bikes around, looking for packages. We’ve also had people who have cameras and gotten good descriptions from those photos.
Another issue is cars being stolen while they are running in the morning to warm them up. Do NOT use your key to start them up unless you are sitting in them.
A citizen reported that now the East Hennepin construction materials are gone, the “East Henn. Speedway” has resumed. CCM Fletcher will be working on it with Traffic Control.
We had a problem with a dope house on Madison, and are still working on it. We have made progress and are still working on it. This property has more than a few problems and the police
There are problems that are very challenging. We have the number 2 overdose house in the entire city and it’s in NE Mpls. We have 13 overdoses year to date (11/19). So we’ve gotten 2 search warrants this year, and have social services involved. Plenty of activity but sometimes it takes a while because it isn’t just one person, it’s a cluster of people. If the owner is a relative, that adds a whole different level of difficulty.
Emilie Quast reported that NextDoor has a feature that may be causing trouble. When a crime is reported on NextDoor, a button pops up asking if the poster wants the report shared with the police. People assume that since the button is there, all they have to do is hit “yes” and the police have been notified. Because she asked for MPD Report number and was told that the victim didn’t get one, Emilie suspected that no one at the MPD is aware of the “report”. No one is monitoring NextDoor and MPD does not have an account that might alert the Second Precinct to the crime. Several other attenders saw the report also and agreed that “something needs to change”. Inspector Loining promised this will be examined — there’s nothing good about making people think they’ve reported a crime when, in fact, they have not.
Meeting was adjourned at 7:46
2nd Precinct Advisory Council 