Our speaker this month, Brockton Hunter is an attorney and former U.S. Army Scout, who saw active service during his enlistment. He has an active practice, and is also leading the push to make Veterans’ Court the standard protocol for response to veterans of active service who have brought the war home with them. Mr. Hunter joined us to explain how America can restore returning veterans to productive post-deployment life by following a model of response, pending in Minnesota legislation, called the Veterans Restorative Justice Act
Mr Hunter is the lead editor and co-author of the book, The Attorney’s Guide to Defending Veterans in Criminal Court, available at www.veteransdefenseproject.org.
A report of his presentation is in Part 1 of the February report.
COURTWATCH: Probation Officer Ihrke reported that the City Attorney’s staff is still defining what the new Courtwatch procedure will be. She and City Atty. Okoronkwo will relay the new format in March.
STATE OF THE PRECINCT
Per the MPD Dashboard, 14 days reported at the meeting, updated to previous 21 days on 2-13:
Part 1 Crime: 4 Rape, 10 Robbery14, Agg. assault, 8 Domestic Agg. assault
Part 2 Crime: 27 Burglary, 111 Larceny, 66 Theft from MV, 57 Auto theft.
Additional info can be gleaned from the crime maps on the Dashboard, which sometimes don’t use official terms, so may be a bit more specific. Be aware that the symbols on the maps are sometimes not assigned correctly.
1 bicycle theft was reported, which does not appear as a separate category. This is way down from bike theft reports in warm weather, of course. One of the auto thefts in PPark was a car jacking, but that also does not appear in a separate category. I can’t tell if that counted as both auto theft and robbery or not.
New report on a problem house in Marcy Holmes at 14th St. and 15th Avenue SE: This house has been the site of two shots-fired, party-fueled events on 1/1/21 and 1/31/21. Nine people were shot, but no one received life-threatening injuries.
At the landlord’s request, CPS Nick Juarez is working with the landlord toward eviction of the current tenants, who are NOT college students. It’s fortunate that the house rental permit is up for renewal this year because that means the house is subject to inspection which may speed up the eviction process.
The Second Precinct has significantly increased patrol in that area, to the point that one of the tenants commented to an officer about it.
Discussion: “theft of motor parts” which often means “theft of catalytic converter.”A bill was introduced in both the MN House and Senate. The intro reads in part: A bill for an act relating to public safety; establishing requirements for the purchase of catalytic converters;
Contact your state representative and ask them to support HF330, also contact your state senator and ask them to support SF206 which is the corresponding bill in the senate.
Sydney.Jordan@house.mn
rep.mohamud.noor@house.mn
karid@senate.mn
Here’s the full text of both bills —
https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bills/text.php?number=HF0330&version=latest&session=92&session_number=0&session_year=2021220 ashttps://www.revisor.mn.gov/bills/text.php?number=SF206&version=latest&session=ls92&session_year=2021&session_number=0
CPS Juarez commented that a similar bill was proposed several years ago when copper theft was raging in response to high copper prices. The recycling lobby stopped that bill on the issue of, “How does one identify who owned the copper before someone brought it into the metal recycler?” CC-theft bills may fail on that point as well, since few car owners put an identifying mark on their catalytic converters.
Inspector Loining added that recyclers are very quick to put materials into the crusher. Cars can be moved from the lot to the crusher in just a few minutes–obliterating the VIN and other identification.
There’s a good article on this theft here: https://www.motorbiscuit.com/why-are-thieves-stealing-catalytic-converters-in-my-town/ One of the section heads says that a thief can make $200/converter, and the recycler will still make a profit.
Emilie Quast, board member
MPD Second Precinct Advisory Council (2-PAC)
Minneapolis MN 55418
e-quas@tc.umn.edu
2nd Precinct Advisory Council 