"Sssssssssmite me! "

Mariam on bike-baiting Minneapolis cops, and the actual impact of community-impact statements:

I work in the system and I've dealt with these "community impact statements". And god help all parties involved if there is one in your case. The City Attorneys office treats them like the gospel, with protocol as to how they are handled and how cases with these statements are to be treated. And yes, they are treated differently than other cases. Now, in theory, this could be a good thing. But let me give you an example I heard about and how it plays out.

The Global Market, located on Lake and Chicago, submitted a community impact statement. They had a guy who was stealing bikes outside of their business and they wanted it stopped. It was effecting their businesses and they wanted to ensure that people who rode their bikes to the Global Market wouldn't be in fear of theft. Anyone familiar with that area knows it's a high crime area and this isn't necessarily suprising. And it is understandable that they would be concerned. What is surprising is how MPD decided to handle it.


Did officers check surveillance video to see if they could identify this culprit? No. Did they conduct surveillance themselves to see if they could observe the described individual stealing bikes? No. Instead, they took a $750 bike and leaned it, without a lock, against a pole on Lake Street. Why $750? Because that amount ensure that the theft of that bike goes from a misdemeanor to a gross misdemeanor - the punishment going from a max of 90 days to a max of 365 days.

One man happened upon this expensive, unlocked bike. As roughly 7 officers watched on, this man hopped on the bike, riding down the street. He rode roughly 1 block where he promptly got off the bike, leaned it against something else, and then waited for the bus. Before he was on the bus, officers quickly nabbed him for gross midemeanor theft.
...
So, instead of investigating an actual crime, Minneapolis police decided to create a crime. And then used several police officers to set up these evil doers. And because there was a "community impact statement" (which did not even relate to this incident) this bullshit case could not be resolved. It was treated as if Moses himself came down from Mount Siani and pointed his finger at this Commandment breaker and asked the City of Minneapolis to smite him.

Is the voice of the community important? Of course. Should it be considered when combating crime? Absolutely! What I still don't understand is why the response to the community voicing a specific concern resulted in some lip service bike-baiting that created criminals, when officers could have looked for a criminal that already existed.