Thursday, June 30, 2005

Red Star shorting on good reporting; Rambix digs

The Red Star won't follow up an important story unless everyone else has done it first, and we don't have time to wait, so Rambix did some digging on the criminals arrested for the Uptown Crime wave. See the report of the arrests here.

Whatever became of these crooks, a normal person might ask themselves. The "reporters" at the Red Star don't seem to care. No backgrounds on the thugs, no followup on the court status - just a whole lot of what the Red Star does best, nothing.

Rambix discovered a site that shows the Hennepin County jail roster, but unfortunately no pics. It's cool anyway. We figured since we have the thugs names, we'll plug them in and see what comes up.

Thug #1, Abikani Mohammed Ahmed, 19:

Full Name:
AHMED, ABDIKANI .MOHAMED
Booking Number:
2005017211
Date of Birth:
1/1/1986
Sheriff's Custody:
IN CUSTODY . .
Housing Location:
PUBLIC SAFETY FACILITY
Address
Received Date/Time:
6/21/2005.. 20:31
Arrested By:
MPLS PARK PD
Case/Count
Description of Charge
Charged By
Reason for Arrest
Severity of Charge
State of Charge
Bail Information
Court Appearance Date/Time
Court Appearance Location
1/1
AGGRAVATED ROBBERY 1ST DEGREE
MINNEAPOLIS PD
BENCH WARRANT
FELONY
$5,000BAIL SET BY DC
7/18/2005..09:00
DOWNTOWN
Address

Thug #2, Abdulkadir Musse Jama, 18:

No info.

Thug #3, Abdishakur Adan Hassan, 18:

No info.

Nothing on Minnesota Criminals.com either, for the last two names. Nothing in Minnesota Department of Corrections. Nothing in the Federal system. Of course, its harder when you can't be certain which name is the first, middle and last name. So the question becomes, why is only one of them in the jail system? Can we hope the two that aren't listed in the jail system were deported?

The Red Star has significantly more database access, and contacts than does Rambix, so why aren't they following up? Isn't that what a newspaper is tasked with?

These are thugs who allegedly committed 20+ robberies of normal, average citizens. In other words, any of us. Is it not important for the public to know what is going on?

Come on, Red Star, do some reporting!