Super Rookie's World

It has been a pretty crappy week for the Civil Service in Minneapolis. It has been well known that I am a big time critic of the Minneapolis Police Department. Just a few months ago I wrote this post about the police department and some of the idiotic things they have done that has cost the department its reputation, a bunch of money and jobs.

Perhaps the most obvious of all the misdeeds was the botched raid on a North Minneapolis house:

Here is how things work at the police department on the other side Highway 280.

1. Get an informant to tell you where they bought drugs.
2. Don’t follow up on the informants information.
3. Perform high-risk SWAT raid on the house.
4. Homeowner protects family by shooting a gun in the air to scare off intruders.
5. Cops open fire.
6. Realize that the house is owned by an immigrant family with a few kids and not drug dealers.
7. Apologize to the family for acting on wrong information, opening the city up to yet another lawsuit.
8. Honoring officers in the raid with medals.

Well, turns out that the city is now awarding $600,000 to the family. Where is the radical right talking about the misuse of tax dollars now? Here is the Star Tribune article about the remittance to the family affected:

Acting on wrong information from an informant, a SWAT team broke into Vang Khang’s north Minneapolis house last December expecting to find gang members and illegal activity.

But Vang thought the SWAT team members were criminal intruders and shot through his bedroom door to protect his wife and six children, ages 3 to 15. Three officers were hit, but were not injured because they were wearing protective gear. The family also escaped injury even though police fired at least 22 rounds.

Police later admitted that the raid was a mistake and apologized to the family. Heffelfinger said police, who were looking for black suspects, should have realized that a Hmong family resided at the home, at 1321 Logan Av. N., because of various Hmong-related “ornaments and other things” both on the outside and inside of the house.

I still can’t believe it. I am not mad at the individual officers as they were shooting for protection and acting on orders, but where is the oversight?

Idiots!

Speaking of idiots. Remember the two cops that fired guns in the air last summer to intimidate neighbors who had complained about a large party at an officer’s house in South Minneapolis? Well, turns out they pled guilty yesterday. At least the police department fired them:

Two former Minneapolis police officers pleaded guilty Thursday to recklessly discharging their guns from a vehicle after leaving a party in Minneapolis this spring.

Scott Mars, 34, and William Thornbury, 28, who were on the force but were off duty when the incident occurred in May, were fired in October. It’s expected they will lose their peace-officer licenses.

They better lose their licenses.
…

I know four Minneapolis Firefighters. They are all extraordinary people and are bona-fide heroes for the jobs that they do.

Perhaps they should be models for the Firefighters on the other side of the river here in St. Paul! Here is a disturbing story from KSTP about a racist incident orchestrated by some firefighters directed at their own brethren.

What a shame.