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Chaotic July 4 in Dinkytown reignites safety talks near UMN
The U of M, law enforcement and community groups has several initiatives underway to get a handle on violent crime in the area.
MINNEAPOLIS — The latest chaotic evening in Dinkytown over the Fourth of July holiday has renewed conversations about safety near the University of Minnesota campus, where crime concerns have been prevalent for several years now.
Richard Painter, a U of M law professor and director with the nonprofit Campus Safety Coalition, said these issues have persisted “both during the school year and over the summer.”
“It’s very important for the community to buy into campus safety initiatives, and for safety initiatives in Dinkytown,” Painter said. “Interim President Ettinger made a lot of headway in this area during his year in charge and I would expect [new president] Rebecca Cunningham to do the same.”
Painter called for bolstered University of Minnesota Police staffing, increased cooperation between UMPD and Minneapolis Police, more vibrancy in the business community and stiffer prosecution by the Hennepin County District Attorney.
“I am optimistic,” Painter said, “about the potential for good leadership from our new university leadership under Rebecca Cunningham.”
Some of those safety efforts are already underway.
For example, in late March, UMPD began responding to 911 calls in neighborhoods off-campus to assist MPD with their workload. Last month, UMPD Chief Matt Clark told the Board of Regents that his officers had responded to 172 emergency calls in this expanded patrol zone between late March and mid-June.
UMPD has also increased its police staffing by 35 percent since 2022, according to Clark. The force now has 62 officers out of an authorized strength of 73.
Meanwhile, plans are moving forward for a new “Safety Center” in Dinkytown, which KARE 11 first reported about last March.
At the Board of Regents meeting last month, Chief Clark confirmed that the university has signed a lease to open the center this September at 315 Fourth Avenue Southeast in the Saint Anthony Main neighborhood, about a mile or so from campus.
The center will include resources for both students and community groups.
“The safety center will be home to the Somali Elders Youth Link, that is a group of Somali elders that we are hiring and worked with last summer,” Clark said. “They’ll be back in Dinkytown this summer to assist with youth diversion.”
Clark said the safety ambassador group known as “Block by Block” will also work out of the center.
“I believe it will help to have a Safety Center in Dinkytown,” Richard Painter said. “If the areas surrounding campus are not safe, then students are not going to want to come here.”
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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.
