Exploding crime

A letter-to-the-editor today in the Red Star is titled "Exploding crime". Anyone who has read this blog for any length of time knows that we have been documenting the violence in Minneapolis all spring and summer. Vusumuzi Zulu is living it in north Minneapolis:

As a longtime North Side Minneapolis resident, I am dismayed and disappointed by the level of violent crime that my neighborhood is facing, despite the recent pronouncements from City Hall that it is making a concerted effort to address the issue.

Just a short four years ago, we had attained the lowest crime rates in decades, but violence has returned to our neighborhoods with a vengeance. I believe that crime increases wherever opportunity exists, and a lack of adequate police enforcement has left our residents vulnerable to the opportunists. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Near North and Jordan neighborhoods, where open drug dealing flourishes and shootings are far too common.

Citizens cannot adequately police our streets; we need enough well-trained police to keep all of us safe. As taxpaying citizens we deserve and demand nothing less.
All residents deserve respect from our police force, and civil rights must be paramount. But "respect" should not be a "whitewash" over what is in reality benign neglect. I am saddened that Mayor R.T. Rybak has allowed our city to fall this far during his tenure by making cuts to police and community policing programming that had allowed officers and community residents to build mutual trust and respect.

Vusumuzi Zulu, Minneapolis.