In 2020, there were 82 homicides in Minneapolis, and in 2021, Minneapolis is on pace to approach the high of 1995. In 1995, the New York Times referred to Minneapolis as “the city of wakes,” due to its high homicide rate. But then the rate declined until 2020, and at this year’s pace we will break the record. There are reasons. Now we need to find solutions. Why? 1. A concoction of cheap heroin and meth. People under the influence of a substance are the greatest risk to be violent. (7X more likely to be violent.) Oxycodone Below is a graph of opioid deaths in Minnesota. In the last 2 years, the number of overdose deaths in Minnesota has risen above this chart. In 2019 this number rose to 483, and in 2020 the number rose to 673. Meth Below is the data on methamphetamine overdoses in the U.S. In 2020, we had the largest number of overdoses ever. 2. A gang war between the Highs and the Lows. The Highs refer to the gangs on the north side of Minneapolis and the Lows are the gangs on the south side. All it takes is a few online insults and they load their automatic weapons and head to the streets. 3. A lack of police officers. The violence has resulted in Minneapolis being unable to replace police officers who leave. COVID has weakened the force further. Last week we had a night where we only had one squad car patrolling north Minneapolis, when there is supposed to be eight, and they really need fifteen. That one set of officers had to respond to shootings in three different areas. The community’s frustrated that officers are slow to respond. There simply aren’t enough officers. 4. Historic segregation. Housing covenants embedded in property deeds prevented minorities from obtaining housing loans to live in certain areas, resulting in forced segregation. This forced minorities into areas which lacked employment. Let’s take a look at the Hawthorne neighborhood in Minneapolis. (It was named after author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Nathaniel’s grandfather was a judge who presided over the Salem Witch Trials and good ol’ Nate attempted to dissociate himself from him. Ironically, Hawthorne’s books were described as dark romanticism, which might have been a good description of the Hawthorne neighborhood.) Half the Hawthorne neighborhood is African American in a state that’s 7% black. Only 44% of adults in Hawthorne were employed, which was the worst rate in Minneapolis. It’s not rocket science. When people have to live were there isn’t work, you have high unemployment. This ad was followed with the quote: “Premises shall not be sold, mortgaged, or leased to or occupied by any person or persons other than members of the Caucasian race.” Minneapolis Star 1923 5. Problematic police officers. The problem is some officers deny the obvious and accept the improbable with black men. They pull over a black man and assume he stole the car and probably used it to rob a gas station at gunpoint—which is highly improbable. That assumption immediately makes it a life-or-death situation. The obvious is he’s just on his way home, like everybody else. We need cops policing the neighborhood, who know the people. They need to be part of the community.” 6. It’s also a pandemic issue. People don’t realize that the second year after the Spanish Flu pandemic in 1919 there was a spike in violent crime. When people are scared, and distrustful of the government, they are more likely to react violently. The government lied to Americans back in 1919, telling people the pandemic started in Spain, when the truth was the first documented case was in Kansas. 7. Illegal guns. Last year over 4000 illegal weapons were seized by police--double the number confiscated just 10 years earlier. You make people tense with a pandemic and unjustified killing, and then you give them guns, and they shoot each other. Examples: “Jerome Horton bought 33 guns in 4 months in 11 Twin Cities gunshops and sold them illegally, including the gun which killed 27-year-old Marquisha Wiley when gunfire erupted in a St. Paul bar on October 10, 2021.” “In May of 2021, Sarah Jean Elwood bought 47 guns. Elwood is not a hunter or collector. The 33-year-old from Crystal was living in her car. She and her fiancé, Jeffrey Paul Jackson, were purchasing firearms from shops around the Twin Cities and selling them on the illegal market, federal prosecutors say. By the end of the month, three of the guns had already been confiscated by police in connection with shooting investigations, according to an affidavit underlying the felony federal charges.” When you combine all of the above factors, the current mess isn’t particularly surprising. Now that the problem is identified, we can work on solutions. Part of the solution would be a project to revitalize the community by creating real jobs, rather than just giving money away. This has caused employee shortages throughout the nation. A big part of the solution is local policing. My heart breaks for the parents who’ve lost their kids to these shootings. If it was my kid, I’d detain every person involved in a shooting until I had answers. But that would make me just another white guy unfairly incarcerating people. It needs to be done by people the local community knows and trusts. In the midst of this craziness, we have to remind people that there are some great law enforcement officers. There are amazing officers like Charlie Adams and his Blue Bloods in North Minneapolis who work hard at trying to make a community, which needs more jobs, opportunities, and police officers, livable. Thank you readers! What an amazing couple weeks of presentations and selling tons of books! At the events, I ran out of the trilogy and Murder Quads, but I’ll be restocking them again this week. I had full taprooms at Angry Inch Brewing in Lakeville, Luce Line Brewing in Plymouth, Alloy Brewing in Coon Rapids and sold 71 books at the Hello Beauty Event in Little Falls. It was a blast and I look forward to returning to all when my next book is released! A blast from the past: Thank you Bill and Marie Weber, and to my classmates and spouse of great friend, and old friends for sharing time with me at these events. I give my dad, Leo, a little grief about his obsessiveness, but I have to tell you that after he died in 2005, his garage remained as it was until mom moved into assisted living a couple years ago. If you were logical, you could find anything in this garage. He had every type of screw, bolt, nut and nail, and if you walked through the garage, you realized it went from small to large. Unlike my garage, you never had to look long for anything, so all of his children continued to use it as a resource, for over decade, after his death. Dad would also get a laugh that I sign books Frank F. Weber, as I always thought it was funny he wrote Leo A. Weber on everything. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. My siblings and I still laugh at the box Dad labeled “Pending Item” which had a large plastic owl nailed to a board in it. I guess we will never know… Susan Kimman is creating a short video we are going to put online advertising Burning Bridges. Here are some of the photographs I took during the shooting. I will post the video as soon as it’s completed.
Thanks for listening, Frank
7 Comments
Cathy Solvie
10/27/2021 09:44:29 am
Good informative read Frank! My sister and I will be coming to your talk in Fergus on Nov. 5th! Excited to hear you speak and see the lie detector testing!
Reply
10/27/2021 10:12:38 am
Cathy,
Reply
4/17/2023 11:40:14 am
The Last week we had a night where we only had one squad car patrolling north Minneapolis, when there is supposed to be eight, and they really need fifteen. Thank you for sharing your great post!
Reply
4/19/2023 06:45:03 am
Daniel,
Reply
Jon
1/3/2024 01:26:26 pm
Why don’t you be honest and admit Minneapolis has become Mogadishu because city leaders have welcomed Muslims en masse and truth wasn’t told about career criminal, George Floyd?
Reply
1/3/2024 01:52:39 pm
Jon,
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorFrank F. Weber is a forensic psychologist specializing in homicide and sexual and physical assault cases. He uses his unique understanding of how predator’s think, knowledge of victim trauma, actual court cases, and passion for writing true crime thrillers. His Award Winning books include "Murder Book" (2017) "The I-94 Murders" (2018) "Last Call" (2019) and "Lying Close" (September 2020). Archives
April 2024
Categories |