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Hamline students’ knowledge put to the test with mock crime scene
Hamline University’s “After-Hours Crime Scene” gets forensic science students out of the classroom and into realistic scenarios.
ST PAUL, Minnesota — It’s the middle of the night at Hamline University. The Blue Garden is surrounded by crime tape.
“I was called at about… 1:30,” said Hailee Aro, a senior majoring in biology and forensic science.
Nearby, another student is on the phone with a classmate who had already missed five calls.
These students — all part of Hamline’s Crime Scene and Death Investigation course — had no idea they would be gathering at 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday.
Jamie Spaulding, program director of forensic science and assistant professor at Hamline University, said students only knew that some time this week they would be participating in the “After-Hours Crime Scene.” But the time and place weren’t disclosed.
“What we’re trying to do is best simulate, as close as we possibly can, the real world challenges that they would face in this. As we know, your typical class time at 8 or 9 o’clock in the morning isn’t when all crimes occur,” Spaulding said.
For the practical, Spaulding served as the initial responding officer. Fourteen students were broken into two groups to investigate two different crime scenes. Both of the scenarios involved witnesses hearing gun shots with two victims (mannequins) on the scene. Students then had witnesses to interview, evidence to gather and media to answer to.
When KARE 11 asked one student what was happening, the response was, “I’m not free to comment as we’re still investigating.”
At one point, a group of fraternity brothers thought they recognized the victim as one of their pledges and jumped the crime scene tape before students stopped them. Another outside factor was having to deal with drizzle on the scene.
“Trying to simulate practice as best we possibly can because if we’re able to do that, this is where they get to make mistakes,” Spaulding said.
Hamline is the only Minnesota university with a forensic science major and it’s one of the few forensics programs in the Upper Midwest.
Their program has about 90 students with 60 majors and 30 minors to choose from.
There is also a crime lab house on Holton Street that’s used for more hands-on experience.
Students will now author a full report on the scene but Spaulding will not tell them what exactly happened.
“In terms of whether or not they get it correct, no. That is the hardest thing transitioning from academia into the field is there is no longer a feedback mechanism. Guilty is by no means a barometer of getting it right. That’s not a measure of accuracy for any investigator,” Spaulding said. “In the field, we’re never going to know whether we’re right or wrong. It’s a hard lesson for students. It really is.”
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The crash happened when a Suburban pulling a trailer failed to stop at a stop sign, Minnesota State Patrol said.
WAUKENABO, Minn. — Two people from Minnetonka died in a crash Friday in Aitkin County while others, including children, were hurt.
According to Minnesota State Patrol, it happened at the intersection of Highway 169 and Grove Street/County Road 3 in Waukenabo Township at approximately 5:15 p.m.
A Suburban pulling a trailer was driving east on County Road 3 but did not stop at the stop sign at Highway 169, authorities said. The vehicle was struck by a northbound GMC Yukon. Two other vehicles were struck in the crash, but the people in those two cars were not injured.
In the Suburban, the driver sustained life-threatening injuries, according to State Patrol. Elizabeth Jane Baldwin, 61, of Minnetonka, and Marlo Dean Baldwin, 92, of Minnetonka, both died. Officials said the driver of the vehicle, a 61-year-old from Minnetonka, has life-threatening injuries.
There were six people in the Yukon when the crash occurred. The 44-year-old driver, as well as passengers ages 18, 14, and 11, sustained what officials described as life-threatening injuries. The other two passengers have non-life-threatening injuries.
Alcohol is not believed to be a factor in the crash, but officials said Elizabeth Jane Baldwin had not been wearing a seatbelt.
Among those at the start line this year will be Alex Vigil.
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Pixar’s second installment of the movie features characters we’ve already met — Joy, Sadness and Anger — and gives them a new roommate named Anxiety.
MINNEAPOLIS — Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” universe plays out inside the mind of the movie’s adolescent protagonist, Riley.
She plays a kid from Minnesota whose family uproots her life by moving to San Francisco. But did you know that what plays out in Riley’s mind actually comes from the mind of a real-life Minnesotan?
“You are one of us!” said Breaking the News anchor Jana Shortal.
“Yes, I am!” said Burnsville native and the movie’s creator and director, Kelsey Mann.
Mann was chosen for the role by ANOTHER Minnesotan — Pete Docter, the man behind the original movie, “Inside Out.”
“I don’t know if Pete asked me to do this movie because I was from Minnesota and he was from Minnesota … I just think it worked out that way,” Mann said.
How two guys from the south metro made a pair of Pixar movies that would change the game is a hell of a story that began with Docter in 2015.
“He [Docter] was just trying to tell a fun story — an emotional, fun story — and didn’t realize how much it would help give kids a vocabulary to talk about things they were feeling because they are feeling those emotions, but they’re really hard to talk about,” Mann said.
Some parents, counselors and teachers might even tell you it did more good for kids than just entertain them. It unlocked their emotions and begged for what Mann set out to create at the beginning of 2020.
“That part was fun, particularly fun,” he said. “I think the daunting part was following up a film that everyone really loved.”
But Mann knew what he wanted to do with the movie’s follow-up, “Inside Out 2.”
“Diving into Riley’s adolescence … that was just fun,” he said.
This time around, Riley is 13, hitting puberty and facing all of what, and who, comes with it. The franchise’s second installment features characters we’ve already met — Joy, Sadness and Anger — and gives them a new roommate named Anxiety.
“I think that’s what’s fun about the ‘Inside Out’ world: You can take something we all know and give it a face,” Mann said. “We can give anxiety a name and a face.”
The film follows Riley’s emotions fighting it out for control of her life. Joy wants Riley to stay young and hold on only to joy, while anxiety is hell-bent on taking over Riley over at the age of 13 because as a lot of us know, that’s when anxiety often moves in.
“I always pitched it as a takeover movie, like an emotional takeover,” Mann said. “Anxiety can kind of feel like that; it can take over and kind of shove your other emotions to the side and repress them.”
For a kids’ movie, it’s hard to watch this animation play out, even when an adult has the keys to decide.
“I’m making a movie about anxiety and I still have to remind myself to have my anxiety take a seat,” Mann said.
All of our individual anxieties have a place in this world.
“The whole movie honestly is about acceptance. Both acceptance of anxiety being there and also of your own flaws,” said Mann.
Even for our kids, we have to remember that this is life.
Anxiety will come for them; it does for us all.
The “Inside Out” world just shows them it’s so.
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