• Eight days before a man was knocked to the ground and killed inMinneapolis, police warned of similar attacks by young robbers in the area, distributing an alert to downtown businesses.

“Warn patrons … have your door monitors be aware …” the alert read, but it never went to the larger public via the Police Department’s crime alert e-mail system.

A more public alarm may not have made a difference for Adrian Hernandez, 44, a salon worker who was trailed by three young men down Hennepin Avenue early on the morning of Aug. 22. They followed him for five blocks. He died Sunday of his injuries suffered in the attack.

With robberies up dramatically over two years in Minneapolis, the crime fit a disturbing pattern that police had seen four times in August: a lone individual, often intoxicated, gets surrounded by three to five young men who then rob and sometimes assault their victims. Wallets and iPhones, which can fetch $200 on the streets, were typically taken. The attacks took place in a strip of downtown bounded by Marquette and 1st Avenues N. Men and women were targeted.

A civilian employee of the Police Department issued an alert to downtown businesses on Aug. 14 but did not issue a more broad “crime alert” to residents and others who subscribe to the service, which would have required the approval of a police inspector or lieutenant.

“Part of that decision was made because the target audience was outside of what we felt would be reached through normal delivery channels,” said Sgt. Bill Palmer, a department spokesman.

The typical downtown crowd includes people who live outside the city and may not subscribe to the e-mail crime alerts, he said.

Palmer said it’s also a balance the police try to strike between arming the public with information and not crying wolf.

If the police e-mail too many warnings, he said, people would just “delete, delete, delete.”

Full article here.

Man killed in downtown Mpls. after crime alert issued only to businesses | Star Tribune

And I forgot about this posting on a web site from a few months ago:

As a 20 year resident of the Twin Cities, I can tell you that “Minnesota nice” is no more. The downtown areas of both Minneapolis and St. Paul are downright dangerous after normal business hours.

Formerly bustling suburbs like Robbinsdale and St. Louis Park have turned into ghettos. Malls, restaurants and shops are few and far between in downtown areas.

All of this, and I mean all of it, is caused by minorities – mostly blacks. Even the Mall of America is under assault. Go there on a Saturday afternoon and you’ll see gangs of blacks with colors flying and pant legs rolled up.

They ogle, whistle at and harass white women, even following them around. They occupy the food courts, which are a constant source of intimidation and mayhem.

Last January, some 200 blacks got into a violent chair throwing fracas at one of the food courts. It quickly spread to other areas, forcing 
stores to close their gates and paying customers to flee. There was cell phone video all over the Internet, showing conclusively that the combatants were black. We’ll never know if there were any arrests made or charges filed because the print and broadcast media had little to say.

The government, the media, the police and others simply refuse to acknowledge the problem, referring instead to youths, teenagers and youngsters.

I feel badly for the young man who was beaten but you have to wonder…”What was this guy thinking?” Blacks are trouble. They are loud, vulgar, disrespectful and violent – and they get away with it because nobody will address the problem head on.