MINNEAPOLIS POLICE: CRIME AND LAWLESSNESS APPROACHING NEW ORLEANS PROPORTIONS
Today the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was used as political ammunition in the Minneapolis mayoral campaign.
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Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis Urges Primary Voters Concerned about Crime to Vote Anybody But Rybak on September 13th
Minneapolis, MN - Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis President John Delmonico today blasted Mayor R. L. Rybak for his lack of leadership on the crime wave facing Minneapolis citizens and urged primary voters to vote for "Anyone but Rybak."
"In parts of Minneapolis today we have crime and lawlessness approaching New Orleans proportions, but our mayor can't blame it on the weather," explained Delmonico. "Instead Mayor Rybak claims that the only people affected by crime are those engaged in, quote, 'high-risk lifestyles.' I dare the mayor to tell that to the mother of the three-year-old who was shot, the son of the mother who was killed buying gas and the man who was mowing his lawn and wound up beaten and kidnapped. It's not high-risk Mr. Mayor, it's high-crime."
Federation leadership says the primary election next week is almost the last chance voters will have to send a message to the mayor that it is time to stop pretending crime only affects a narrow segment of the city.
"The only time Rybak listens is at election time," said Delmonico. "Voters who vote 'Anyone but Rybak' will be sending him a powerful message that they are fed up with crime and it's high time he stopped waiting on the state and put more police and more public safety at the top of his priority list."
To help get the word out to primary voters the Federation is begging a radio advertising campaign today that proclaims, "It's high time that 'High-Risk Rybak' learns that mayor who ignore crime and cut cops suffer consequences, too.
The campaign will run through next Monday and targets radio stations listened to by likely primary voters.
Since 1972, the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis has represented police officers up to the rank of captain who are employed by the City of Minneapolis and the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board. Currently the Federation has more than 900 members and is the largest non-affiliated law enforcement union in the state of Minnesota.
The Federation Board of Directors consists of 10 elected members (nine from the Minneapolis Police Department and one from the Park Police Department), each serving a two-year term. The Federation president serves full-time, along with one other designated board member. The rest of the board serves part-time, while remaining full-time members of the police force. Source: Peace Officers Federation of Minneapolis
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Rybak Campaign Manager John Blackshaw
Responds to Police Federation's Unconscionable Attack
It is an outrage for the leadership of the police federation to use the tragic events in New Orleans to score political points. They not only need to apologize to the thousands of police, fire and other public safety officials risking their lives to help the residents of New Orleans but, he needs to apologize to the residents of New Orleans and Minneapolis for using a national tragedy where many have died for political purposes. I call on all candidates to denounce this unconscionable attack.
This is not the first time that the leadership of the police federation has put politics ahead of public safety. After delivering their endorsement to Governor Pawlenty in his run for office, they stood by and said nothing as the administration launched a budget cutting assault on the City of Minneapolis. At a time when the city needed the help of the federation the most, they were silent. They put partisan politics ahead of the well being of all residents and their own membership.
In addition, this recent attack on Mayor Rybak and his record on crime is cynical and is based in nothing more than transparent partisan politics.
When Mayor Rybak announced that he was putting more police officers on the street, the leadership of the federation expressed great support. However, after the Mayor declined to support a budget busting salary increase for union members, the federation flip-flopped, launched these attacks and fought efforts to place officers on the street.
Mayor Rybak's record on crime is clear. Public safety has been his highest priority since becoming Mayor. He has increased the fire and police budgets by $22 million. He is putting 71 additional police officers on the street to protect or neighborhoods. He put prosecutors in neighborhood precincts top keep repeat offenders off the streets. He appointed strong new fire and police leadership. And he has focused on providing affordable housing, creating job and youth initiatives to attack the core issues of crime.
Mayor Rybak is the only candidate in this race who has shown how to pay for more officers on the street. Source: R.T. Rybak for Mayor
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I wonder if Rybak will tell Democrats to stop using the tragic events in New Orleans to score political points against President Bush.
I am not defending Rybak, but the reference to New Orleans is offensive.
Hennepin County Attorney and U.S. Senate candidate Amy Klobuchar must hate that the Minneapolis mayoral candidates are focusing on crime. If Rybak is responsible for Minneapolis' rising crime-rate, than so is Klobuchar.
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Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis Urges Primary Voters Concerned about Crime to Vote Anybody But Rybak on September 13th
Minneapolis, MN - Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis President John Delmonico today blasted Mayor R. L. Rybak for his lack of leadership on the crime wave facing Minneapolis citizens and urged primary voters to vote for "Anyone but Rybak."
"In parts of Minneapolis today we have crime and lawlessness approaching New Orleans proportions, but our mayor can't blame it on the weather," explained Delmonico. "Instead Mayor Rybak claims that the only people affected by crime are those engaged in, quote, 'high-risk lifestyles.' I dare the mayor to tell that to the mother of the three-year-old who was shot, the son of the mother who was killed buying gas and the man who was mowing his lawn and wound up beaten and kidnapped. It's not high-risk Mr. Mayor, it's high-crime."
Federation leadership says the primary election next week is almost the last chance voters will have to send a message to the mayor that it is time to stop pretending crime only affects a narrow segment of the city.
"The only time Rybak listens is at election time," said Delmonico. "Voters who vote 'Anyone but Rybak' will be sending him a powerful message that they are fed up with crime and it's high time he stopped waiting on the state and put more police and more public safety at the top of his priority list."
To help get the word out to primary voters the Federation is begging a radio advertising campaign today that proclaims, "It's high time that 'High-Risk Rybak' learns that mayor who ignore crime and cut cops suffer consequences, too.
The campaign will run through next Monday and targets radio stations listened to by likely primary voters.
Since 1972, the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis has represented police officers up to the rank of captain who are employed by the City of Minneapolis and the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board. Currently the Federation has more than 900 members and is the largest non-affiliated law enforcement union in the state of Minnesota.
The Federation Board of Directors consists of 10 elected members (nine from the Minneapolis Police Department and one from the Park Police Department), each serving a two-year term. The Federation president serves full-time, along with one other designated board member. The rest of the board serves part-time, while remaining full-time members of the police force. Source: Peace Officers Federation of Minneapolis
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Rybak Campaign Manager John Blackshaw
Responds to Police Federation's Unconscionable Attack
It is an outrage for the leadership of the police federation to use the tragic events in New Orleans to score political points. They not only need to apologize to the thousands of police, fire and other public safety officials risking their lives to help the residents of New Orleans but, he needs to apologize to the residents of New Orleans and Minneapolis for using a national tragedy where many have died for political purposes. I call on all candidates to denounce this unconscionable attack.
This is not the first time that the leadership of the police federation has put politics ahead of public safety. After delivering their endorsement to Governor Pawlenty in his run for office, they stood by and said nothing as the administration launched a budget cutting assault on the City of Minneapolis. At a time when the city needed the help of the federation the most, they were silent. They put partisan politics ahead of the well being of all residents and their own membership.
In addition, this recent attack on Mayor Rybak and his record on crime is cynical and is based in nothing more than transparent partisan politics.
When Mayor Rybak announced that he was putting more police officers on the street, the leadership of the federation expressed great support. However, after the Mayor declined to support a budget busting salary increase for union members, the federation flip-flopped, launched these attacks and fought efforts to place officers on the street.
Mayor Rybak's record on crime is clear. Public safety has been his highest priority since becoming Mayor. He has increased the fire and police budgets by $22 million. He is putting 71 additional police officers on the street to protect or neighborhoods. He put prosecutors in neighborhood precincts top keep repeat offenders off the streets. He appointed strong new fire and police leadership. And he has focused on providing affordable housing, creating job and youth initiatives to attack the core issues of crime.
Mayor Rybak is the only candidate in this race who has shown how to pay for more officers on the street. Source: R.T. Rybak for Mayor
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I wonder if Rybak will tell Democrats to stop using the tragic events in New Orleans to score political points against President Bush.
I am not defending Rybak, but the reference to New Orleans is offensive.
Hennepin County Attorney and U.S. Senate candidate Amy Klobuchar must hate that the Minneapolis mayoral candidates are focusing on crime. If Rybak is responsible for Minneapolis' rising crime-rate, than so is Klobuchar.
3 Comments:
Not that it matters much, but that yellow text is really hard to read in my RSS aggregrator.
I wonder if Rybak will tell Democrats to stop using the tragic events in New Orleans to score political points against President Bush.
It's not our fault that George Bush, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, the rest of the White House Krewe and the RNC are weak on protecting America because they are too busy sending people off to die in Iraq.
And lord knows an occupation is an expensive thing. Gotta pay for it somehow, and I guess it's poor black people who have to pay disproportionally.
And, I mean really... you don't allow anonymous comments, but you're allowed to keep your warm and fuzzy blanket of complete anonymity? How exactly does that work...
"I'm gonna make everyone who posts to my website give up their IP address, but I don't have to... nanny-nanny-boo-boo"
Sean Broom | Man enough to put my name behind what I write.
Sean said...
It's not our fault that George Bush, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, the rest of the White House Krewe and the RNC are weak on protecting America because they are too busy sending people off to die in Iraq.
Protecting America from the weather? Boy, that's a new one! Why don’t you blame Clinton for sending troops too? We are still supporting the areas that he sent troops? You also need to realize that there is only about 10% of our reserves that have been sent anywhere, and that we still have plenty of troops here to help in Louisiana.
The truth is that the Governor of Louisiana did her job by declaring an emergency 72 hours before the storm hit (8-26-2005), but the Mayor of New Orleans, Mayor Nagin (D) (who is an African American who was a republican who turned democrat in 2002, right before the elections, didn’t give the order to evacuate the city until 8-28-2005, which gave it’s residents about 24 hours to get out. According to the New Orleans Emergency Plan, “Using information developed as part of the Southeast Louisiana Hurricane Task Force and other research, the City of New Orleans has established a maximum acceptable hurricane evacuation time standard for a Category 3 storm event of 72 hours. This is based on clearance time or is the time required to clear all vehicles evacuating in response to a hurricane situation from area roadways. Clearance time begins when the first evacuating vehicle enters the road network and ends when the last evacuating vehicle reaches its destination. Source: City of New Orleans Emergency Evacuation Plan…http://www.cityofno.com/portal.aspx?portal=46&tabid=26
Sean said…
And lord knows an occupation is an expensive thing. Gotta pay for it somehow, and I guess it's poor black people who have to pay disproportionally.
Again, you might want to get your facts straight and blame the first link in the chain, an African American, Democrat Mayor. Then, you can blame a White Democrat Governor for not asking for help in a timely manner…then, if your President denies her request for help, only THEN can you even start to CONSIDER that the motive is race.
Sean said…\
And, I mean really... you don't allow anonymous comments, but you're allowed to keep your warm and fuzzy blanket of complete anonymity? How exactly does that work...
"I'm gonna make everyone who posts to my website give up their IP address, but I don't have to... nanny-nanny-boo-boo"
Sean Broom | Man enough to put my name behind what I write.
Sean, it’s because of the hatred the left has for MDE for shining the light on the cockroaches known as limousine liberals that he needs to be anonymous. I certainly don’t blame him for being anonymous, he has his personal property and health to worry about. I saw all the damage that the left caused to the Bush campaign signs on private property…I can only image what you would do to MDE.
If it really WAS a big deal to you, Sean, you too could be anonymous instead of telling everyone your name, and giving them the opportunity to get info on you that could be used against you.
One last comment…using words like, “krewe”, “gonna” and “nanny-nanny-boo-boo", along with not spell checking your post, does nothing for your creditability.
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