Crime
June 15, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
This week, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a crack offender is eligible for a sentence reduction under the First Step Act only if convicted of a crack offense that triggered a mandatory minimum sentence. Even Justice Sotomayor agreed with this result. It was a no-brainer. Yet, the Biden Justice Department refused to defend this result after it was reached at the court of appeals level. It went so far
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June 15, 2021 — John Hinderaker
Uptown was, until recently, one of Minneapolis’s principal entertainment and shopping areas. Now, in the wake of Winston Boogie Smith’s shooting by law enforcement–he apparently opened fire first–a chunk of Uptown has been closed off to traffic and turned into an “autonomous zone” that is referred to by some as Boogie World. The area encompasses Lake Street, one of the city’s principal roadways, from Hennepin Avenue–another principal roadway–to Fremont Avenue.
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June 14, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Winston Boogie Smith was the target of a North Star Fugitive Task Force arrest operation that cornered him on the afternoon of June 3 at the top of the parking ramp adjacent to Uptown’s Seven Points (better known as Calhoun Square). Smith appears to have engaged in a gun battle with members of the task force when they sought to arrest him on an outstanding warrant. The woman who was
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June 9, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Adam Smith said, “there is a great deal of ruin in a nation.” He meant that a nation can withstand a great deal of incompetent governance and misguided policies. Smith was right. There’s less ruin in a city, though, and that brings us to Baltimore Bryan Preston of PJ Media reports that business owners in Baltimore’s Fells Point area are threatening to withhold tax payments if the city doesn’t respond
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June 8, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
A new Pew Research poll finds that 60 percent of Americans favor the death penalty for people convicted of murder. This result is a stunning turnaround. Less than five years ago, Pew found that only 49 percent of Americans favored the death penalty for convicted murderers. This was the lowest level of support in more than four decades. The October 2016 poll showed 42 percent opposed to the death penalty.
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June 6, 2021 — Scott Johnson
I want to add more notes to our coverage of Winston Boogie Smith, the target of a North Star Fugitive Task Force arrest operation that cornered him at the top of the parking ramp adjacent to Uptown’s Seven Points (better known as Calhoun Square). Smith appears to have engaged in a gun battle with members of the task force when they sought to arrest him on an outstanding warrant this
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June 5, 2021 — Scott Johnson
I correctly named Winston Boogie Smith as the decedent in Minneapolis’s police-involved shooting Thursday afternoon. Smith was the target of an arrest operation conducted by the Joint Law Enforcement Fugitive Task Force in the parking ramp adjacent to Calhoun Square in the Uptown neighborhood of Minneapolis. Picking up where I left off yesterday morning, I want to add the following notes to update the story. • The Star Tribune reported
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June 4, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Winston Smith is the protagonist of Orwell’s 1984. He is not to be confused with Winston Boogie Smith. According to CrimeWatchMpls, Winston Boogie Smith is the reported decedent in the police involved shooting at the top of the parking ramp adjacent to Calhoun Square in the heart of Minneapolis’s Uptown neighborhood. Smith (if it was Smith) was the target of an arrest operation that went down in the heart of
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June 3, 2021 — John Hinderaker
This afternoon Hennepin County Sheriff’s deputies shot and killed a man who reportedly was a homicide suspect in a parking ramp in Minneapolis, just a few blocks from the defunct (as of this morning) George Floyd memorial. Details are sketchy. Minneapolis Crime Watch is the most reliable source of information on such events: OFFICER INVOLVED SHOOTING. One male down.Hennepin deputies calling for help in a parking ramp near Fremont and
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June 3, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
Buckhead is a well-to-do district in Atlanta with around 86,000 residents. It has not been exempt from Atlanta’s crime wave (homicides in Atlanta are up 59 percent from this time last year, when the city ended up with its highest total in two decades). One new Buckhead resident was victimized by break-ins to her vehicles twice within a period of a few weeks. Then, there was a shootout on her
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June 1, 2021 — Paul Mirengoff
The wave of violent crime in America is so pronounced that the mainstream media can’t help but report it. But that doesn’t mean the media must mention some obvious reasons why the nation might be experiencing the surge of violence. This weekend, the Washington Post featured two stories on the the crime wave. This one focused on crime in Prince Georges County, Maryland, a predominantly black county just outside of
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May 30, 2021 — Scott Johnson
Last week we had the “Shootout from George Floyd Square” broadcast live from Minneapolis. The video looks like a scene from a dark comedy. I think of it as the shootout at the not OK corral. It was in any event the perfect way to commemorate the anarchy and lawlessness Minneapolis has experienced in the year since George Floyd’s death. Patrick Coolican was a reporter who wrote (with Stephen Montemayor)
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May 26, 2021 — Scott Johnson
A year after George Floyd’s death the AP’s Philip Crowther reported live from Minneapolis’s George Floyd Square when a shootout befitting a war zone broke out. The AP reports in its “one year after” story (omitted from the AP’s Morning Wire email): Associated Press video from 38th Street and Chicago Avenue — informally known as George Floyd Square — showed people running for cover as shots rang out. Police said
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May 25, 2021 — John Hinderaker
This morning there was a street festival at George Floyd Square in Minneapolis, a place generally avoided by the police. The Associated Press anticipated the event: The intersection where George Floyd took his final breaths is to be transformed Tuesday into an outdoor festival on the anniversary of his death, with food, children’s activities and a long list of musical performers. But the festivities were rudely interrupted: Quick rough footage
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May 24, 2021 — John Hinderaker
Over the past year, Minneapolis has joined Chicago, Portland, Baltimore, Seattle, Detroit and St. Louis as cities whose futures look bleak on account of out-of-control crime. Scott wrote this afternoon about the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s tentative and belated acknowledgement that the city’s residents need to support their police department rather than interfering with attempted arrests. That would be a start, I guess. But Minneapolis’s decline is precipitous and the hour
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May 22, 2021 — John Hinderaker
As we have written before, the city of Minneapolis is circling the drain, mostly as a result of out-of-control violent crime. The City Council, meanwhile, natters on about defunding the police and cracking down on “police violence.” Which, needless to say, is not the problem. One of my daughters pointed this out to me. Note the contrast between the headline and the breaking news: Good luck with that “campaign” if
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May 19, 2021 — John Hinderaker
When Americans think of failed cities, places like Portland, Seattle, Detroit and Baltimore come to mind. But Minneapolis is, at a minimum, flirting with a similar status. The problem is out-of-control crime. Last Saturday night, six people were shot in Minneapolis, including a nine-year-old girl. Alpha News has the straight story: A nine-year-old Minneapolis girl is in the hospital after she was struck by gunfire over the weekend, making her
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