Apr 102006
A couple of recent homicides have generated a lot of press concerning the relative “safety” of Minneapolis. Now, like any city, Minneapolis has neighborhoods where crime is more prevalent, particularly the North Side. Unfortunately, as in most cities, homicides in the more impoverished neighborhoods don’t receive much attention in the media. These two particular murders–one about eight blocks from my building in Downtown and the other in the trendy Uptown area, arguably received more attention because the victims were middle-class and white and they occurred in neighborhoods that get a lot of visitors from the suburbs.
I don’t see either of these shootings as anything more than aberrations. But it was discouraging, albeit unexpected, to see Governor Pawlenty make a clumsy attempt to make political hay out of these events. He accused our mayor of slashing the budget for police officers. The Mayor shot back, and rightly so, that cuts in state aid to local government forced Minneapolis to reduce the number of officers on the street. The Twin Cities, along with the Iron Range, are favorite scapegoats of Republican state lawmakers and they never miss a chance to score points with suburban and rural voters by painting these areas as crime-ridden and/or replete with people dependent on welfare.
Of course, all of this bickering ignores the fact that both state and local governments, along with the business community, could do a lot more to provide opportunities to the kids I see congregating outside Block E. I have no illusions that we can save every kid, but surely we could give them better options than hanging around a sterile urban mall.
