Star Tribune
South Minneapolis’ Whittier neighborhood leads city in gun violence
Those who are targeted often don’t bother filing a formal police report, he said, because of the perception no one will ever be held accountable. Victims are given a case number and frequently receive no follow-up from authorities.
“What will they do about it?” Dakane said. “It’s a waste of time.”
O’Hara acknowledged that understaffing remains a chronic issue at MPD, but urged residents to report such crimes so they can better track the problem. The department launched a “South Side React” team earlier this year to proactively address rising crime, he said, and has seen some success with its new robbery protocol, which redeploys resources and pauses all other service calls to thwart robbery sprees in a specific area.
Police officials sought to expand ShotSpotter, the city’s acoustic gunshot detection system, this summer to broader swaths of south Minneapolis experiencing surges in gun violence, but were forced to roll back the coverage plan over concerns by members of the City Council’s progressive wing, who have expressed skepticism about its ability to curb gun violence. The more limited expansion does not stretch into south Whittier, O’Hara noted, or the nearby hot spot of 19th and Nicollet, where police have seen much spillover.
“I don’t feel safe in my own frickin’ neighborhood,” said Chris Sonnesyn, 59, a longtime Whittier resident who was assaulted in July. When Sonnesyn, an independent contractor, discovered that a homeless man had broken into a client’s apartment and caused $500 in damage, he offered the man a job rather than calling police.
To Sonnesyn’s surprise, the man showed up for work the next day and spent several hours mowing lawns. But as Sonnesyn went to the garage to grab him a soda, the man pulled a rope from his backpack and attempted to strangle Sonnesyn.
PRICE, Utah — Four people from Minnesota and a Utah man were killed in a four-vehicle chain reaction crash in central Utah, the Utah Highway Patrol said.
The driver of an SUV who was pulling onto U.S. Highway 6 near Price on Thursday afternoon overshot the acceleration lane and pulled into the path of a semitractor pulling double trailers, the patrol said.
The driver of the semi tried to swerve to avoid hitting the SUV, lost control and crossed the median. The semi struck a Nissan Rogue in the opposite lanes, pushing it off the road and into a rock embankment. The semi and the Nissan also struck an all-terrain vehicle that was traveling on the shoulder of the highway.
All four people in the Nissan were killed, along with the person on the ATV, the patrol said. The semitractor and its trailers ended up on their side.
The victims in the Nissan were Sang Her, 56, and Lee Thao, 38, both from Brooklyn Center, and Bee Moua, 26, and Mai Lor, 25, both from St. Paul, the patrol said Friday. The driver of ATV was 35-year-old Gustavo Mendoza of Helper, Utah.
The driver of the SUV that had been pulling onto the highway suffered minor injuries.
The current situation is similar to Minnesota’s 2017 outbreak of 75 cases, which also occurred mostly among Somali immigrants, who have been fearful that the measles vaccine increases risks of childhood autism, despite substantial research to the contrary.
Yet it has presented different challenges than the 2017 outbreak that centered on day care facilities and toddlers, or even this year’s outbreak in Chicago that emerged in a temporary shelter for migrants. Those weren’t discovered until locally infected people had already passed measles on to more people, who had passed it on to more people.
“That’s when its like, ‘uh oh, there’s a lot of people that got exposed that we don’t know about,’” Griffith said. “With [the 2024 outbreak], we’ve been able to stay on top of things a little bit more quickly.”
This year’s Minnesota outbreak started in May with three related children who were infected during travels to a country where measles is common. Health officials identified close contacts at risk who hadn’t been vaccinated and asked them to stay away from others, but the virus slipped through. People carrying the virus can be infectious for four days before rashes emerge, said Erica Bagstad, an infectious disease epidemiology supervisor for Hennepin County Public Health, which has worked closely with people exposed to measles during their stay-at-home periods.
“So you might have a little runny nose and a tiny cough and you wouldn’t think twice about going out in public” and unknowingly spreading measles, she said.
Two measles cases emerged in late June, followed by three in July among children from different metro counties who had no apparent links.
Varying pictures emerged at other colleges. St. Olaf College didn’t provide exact figures, but the number of Black, Asian and students reporting two or more races fell, while there were “a few more” Latino students, said Chris George, St. Olaf’s associate vice president for enrollment. He said he thinks the court decision “played a role,” though FAFSA problems also had a disproportionate impact on first-generation and lower-income students.
At the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, officials didn’t have detailed information about racial groups but said 37% of first-year students identified as people of color. Numbers have risen since 2019, when 25% of first-year students fit that description. This year saw the largest incoming class since 1965.
“We also believe this is the most racially and ethnically diverse cohort on record,” said Keri Risic, executive director of admissions for the office of undergraduate admissions at the U’s Twin Cities campus.
Across the country, college administrators had been preparing for the Supreme Court decision for months when it was announced.
The decision came at a challenging time for many higher education institutions because the pool of prospective college students is shrinking, partly because of declining birthrates over a decade ago. The population of college-age students is also becoming more diverse.
By 2036, about 40% of Minnesota public high school graduates will be people of color, according to projections from the nonprofit Midwestern Higher Education Compact.
