Star Tribune
Retired Minneapolis police Sgt. Peter Jackson is remembered as courageous investigator with a zest for life
Those who knew Peter Jackson during his time at the Minneapolis Police Department remember him as much for his love for life as for his work as an officer.
“He really lived life. He did so many things,” said Mike Furnstahl, a friend and retired Hennepin County prosecutor. “He was a pilot. He scuba dived. He was an athlete. He built his own house and designed it and was a contractor on it.”
Jackson, a retired Minneapolis Police Department sergeant, died unexpectedly July 29 of a heart attack. He was 66 years old. A celebration of his life is planned for Oct. 17 at Golden Valley Country Club.
“He was an incredible guy,” Furnstahl said. “Everyone who knows him is really going to miss him.”
Jackson worked in law enforcement for nearly three decades, spending the bulk of his career with the Minneapolis police patrolling the North Side, working undercover in narcotics and eventually earning a promotion to sergeant and a homicide assignment.
When he retired, then-Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak proclaimed Dec. 20, 2006, “Sergeant Pete Jackson Day.” Jackson moved to Arizona afterward but stayed in close contact with his many Minnesota connections.
Al Berryman, a retired MPD officer, was president of the police union and grew familiar with Jackson during the investigation into the shocking ambush killing of Minneapolis police officer Jerry Haaf in 1992.
Haaf’s gang killing is among the most notorious murders in Minneapolis history, with the four convicted men still serving prison time.
Jackson provided Berryman with regular updates on the investigation. Berryman recalled that Jackson was personable and really listened, even during such challenging circumstances.
“He did a great job in homicide,” he said.
Former Hennepin County Judge Tony Leung recalled seeing Jackson in his courtroom to obtain search warrants but also frequently peeking through the door’s window. Leung, now a U.S. magistrate judge, later learned Jackson was interested in court reporter Kathleen Feldman, which explained the surreptitious glances.
Jackson and Feldman began dating, which led to a friendship between Jackson and Leung, with the judge asking Jackson to be a godfather to his children.
Leung recalled Jackson was a gifted communicator.
“He was always able to get people to talk to him,” Leung said.
Jackson’s retirement involved as much action as his police work, according to Feldman. He fearlessly jumped out of airplanes, then earned his pilot’s license so he could fly his floatplane. Jackson was also comfortable behind the tiller of a sailboat on the ocean. He hiked up mountains, including Rainier and Kilimanjaro, and found joy in skiing and biking down the slopes at breakneck speed. Before his death, he was studying piano and guitar.
Jackson spent his first 10 years in Gary, Ind., before his family eventually settled in Minnesota, where he graduated from Central High School in 1974. He then obtained an associate’s degree, and much later in 2018, completed a bachelor of science degree in law enforcement from Metropolitan State University.
Jackson started as a police officer at the Brooklyn Center Police Department in 1978, then became a sheriff’s deputy at the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Department in 1980 before joining the Minneapolis Police Department in 1983.
His parents, Phillip and Helen Jackson, and his brother, Reed Jackson, preceded him in death. His sister, Stacey Jackson of Minneapolis, half-brother, Phillip Jackson Jr. of Chicago, his “soul mate,” Kathleen Feldman, and their devoted dogs, Louie and Molly, survive him.
The celebration of life is Oct. 17 from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Golden Valley Country Club, 7001 Golden Valley Road.
That hasn’t ebbed with Simpli-Fi. The startup incorporated in 2018 as a company based out of Florida that integrated technology systems together in commercial buildings to work as a single unit. But business sputtered when the COVID-19 pandemic began, and Campbell had to make staff cuts to his team of 16 employees. He called it one of “the worst times” of his life.
“But during that time is where we made a pivot,” Campbell said.
He set out to find a new technology, eventually spotting NASA’s electronic nose thanks to Brown Venture Group, a St. Paul based firm that supports Black, Latino and Indigenous tech startups. Campbell’s brother, Paul Campbell, is a partner at the firm but said he recused himself from the investment decision.
Chris Campbell was skeptical of the electronic nose’s capabilities at first but sprung for a commercialization license after spending a year researching the technology. By this past summer, he had moved the company to Minnesota and specifically the Osborne building because both are “known for device creation,” he said.
Simpli-Fi’s sensor packs some of the science of gas chromatography and mass spectrometry — which require huge machines — into a sensor the size of a dime, Campbell said. Using nanotubes, the sensor picks up metabolic qualities in the air and breath, he said.
For now, the company is focused on the C. diff-sensing Provectus Canary device, which scans the air around a hospital patient to detect the bacteria that causes the infection, which has gastrointestinal symptoms like diarrhea. The company is working toward the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval for using the sensor to detect various diseases.
A Minneapolis man was sentenced Friday to 20 years in prison for murdering his neighbor in their North Side apartment building last year.
Walter Lee Hill, 59, had pleaded guilty on Monday to second-degree intentional murder. He will get credit for having served nearly a year in jail.
Police were called to the Gateway Lofts on W. Broadway Avenue last November on a report that someone was shot. Officers found Donald Edmondson, 60, dead on the floor of his apartment with a gunshot wound to the chest.
A video camera in the hallway showed Hill knocking on Edmondson’s door, reaching into his sweatshirt pocket and firing his gun once. Hill then left in his Lexus, which officers found near Elliot Park downtown.
They spotted Hill walking nearby, asked for his ID and arrested him when he said something to the effect that they had the right guy.
A witness told police they saw Hill shoot Edmondson, and another said there had been an ongoing dispute between the two. Two days before the murder, Hill had called police because he believed neighbors were breaking into his apartment.
In a statement, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said Edmondson “should still be alive. A violent act committed with such disregard by Mr. Hill has taken him from his family. This sentence delivers accountability and protects our community, and I hope it brings some measure of peace to Mr. Edmondson’s loved ones as they attempt to move forward with their lives.”
ROCHESTER – Buoyed by strong growth in the health care industry, Minnesota’s third-largest city continues to outpace the rest of the state in job creation.
The Rochester Metropolitan Statistical Area added about 7,000 jobs over the past year, a 6.3% year-to-year increase, according to the September jobs report from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED). By comparison, Minnesota as a whole was up 1.2% during the same time period. The next closest region to Rochester was Mankato, which grew 1.6% year to year.
Much of the growth in Rochester MSA, which includes Dodge, Fillmore, Olmsted and Wabasha counties, was driven by a 15% year-to-year increase in the education and health services sector. The sector employed 62,435 people in the region in September, nearly half the overall workforce.
The strong job numbers come as Mayo Clinic breaks ground on the first phases of “Bold. Forward. Unbound. In Rochester.” The $5 billion project — the largest investment in Minnesota history — is expected to bring about 2,000 construction workers to Rochester in the coming years.
While Mayo has not said how many employees it plans to hire once the new facilities open, local economic development officials expect the impacts of the expansion to reverberate across the region.
“As their growth goes up, the rest of the economy grows as well,” said John Wade, president of the Rochester Area Economic Development, Inc. (RAEDI). “If you think about neighboring communities, too, there will be more housing opportunities and job opportunities and businesses looking to expand.”
Wade said he also sees potential for growth in other sectors tied to Mayo, such as hospitality, which makes up more than 8% of the region’s workforce. Precision manufacturing and medical technology were also identified as potential growth sectors.
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