Minnesota

I don’t believe there is a conspiracy that involves the 580 or so police officers in Minneapolis. One that has them organized to not respond to any crimes. One that has them hiding out at the police station unless they can harass and kill African Americans.

There aren’t enough patrol officers to handle the 911 volume. KSTP has a nice article describing the challenges. It notes how one midwatch in North Minneapolis had four officers when the minimum is ten.

https://kstp.com/news/minneapolis-police-federation-union-head-reveals-extent-of-staffing-shortages-across-minneapolis/6170495/

Another article from last month states they’re now down over 300 officers. Retirements are now up 45% and resignations are up 18%.

https://minnesotareformer.com/briefs/minneapolis-police-department-down-300-officers-from-spring-2020/

Meanwhile violent crime in the city has surged. Given the short staffing I can see why a property crime like a stolen car wouldn’t be investigated. The cars are either taken immediately to a chop shop (by a ring) or they’re dropped off later after being used. Some departments now use license plate scanners that alert the officer if a stolen car plate is picked up, but that’s about the extent of it. Auto theft in Mpls was up 41% in 2020 and do far 38% over that for 2021. On neighborhoodscout.com it notes there were 2960 car thefts in the city last year.

Check out the Mpls crime map for the last seven days. It’s awful. Everything on here is a police report. There are a lot of car thefts on the map. There is no way to investigate them all.

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=576634548ffc4304bf9df0fb2b802f8d

Here is an article about six carjackings in Mpls in one night. It notes police were able to catch one of the cars as it was used in multiple aggravated robberies. So the police are doing something.

https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-news/six-carjackings-reported-in-one-evening-in-minneapolis