|
|||
|
See my large slideshow of 22 photos (recommended) or SLOW CLICK this small slideshow: Northfield Police Sergeant Mark Murphy stopped by my corner office at GBM on Wednesday and gave me the news: he’s retiring today. I later found the details of his retirement party in this KYMN news blog post, Sgt. Murphy hangs up his badge:
See all of my blog posts here on LoGro that have involved Mark Murphy. And then get down to City Hall on Monday afternoon to say goodbye. No need to be careful where you park.
The Dec. 18 Fbo Daily News editorial urges the City to wait: Let’s see the results of the fire study before acting on Northfield Public Safety director
Or is having the best possible police chief more important to the City than whatever secondary fire-related role might be included with the position? Are there downsides to waiting 4 months or longer to having a permanent police chief?
When KYMN Radio and Northfield Patch began sounding the alarm at around 6 am that one of the suspects had fired at police officers and fled, members of the Northfield Police Department assumed that citizens would respond in droves to help capture one of the suspects who was still at large and believed to be in the Sechler Park area. By time the Northfield News began covering the story several hours later, gloom was apparent on the faces of the police officers on duty. “We had extra department staff ready to handle the flood of citizen volunteers by deputizing them and issuing them firearms,” said Taylor Marcus, Northfield’s Public Safety Director. “No one showed up. No one emailed. No one tweeted. We had no choice to but to call other law enforcement agencies for help. It was embarrassing.”
“I’m not surprised at all,” said Dewayne Reddy, DJJD board member. “Northfielders have essentially become a bunch of yellow-bellied, lily-livered, milk-toasted, panty-waisted wimp chickens. We’ve been riding on the courage of the town’s ancestors from the 1876 bank raid for over 100 years and we’re now morally bankrupt, no pun intended. It’s a sad day. I feel like turning in my spur.” Noting that the weapon used in today’s robbery had not yet been found, KYMN radio’s Jim Friedman, organizer of the annual DJJD Horseshoe Hunt, said he would attempt to mobilize the citizenry in the morning to help find the suspect’s gun. When asked what he would do to motivate people to participate, Friedman said, “I haven’t got a clue.”
‘Hit’ is an exaggeration. As the young woman skidded to a stop, her front wheel and handlebars just made light contact with my body. I don’t remember if she apologized but I looked at her and said "Do you realize you’re riding on the wrong side of the street?" She flatly said ‘yes,’ got back on her bike, and continued riding south on Division on the wrong side of the street. Two GBM patrons on the sidewalk looked at me and said something to the effect of "Wow, that was a close!" As I crossed the street towards my car, I noticed a Northfield Police car slowly coming south on Division. I motioned to the car and the officer pulled over and rolled down his window. "Did you see what just happened?" I asked. He smiled and said "Yeah, I saw that." I said "She needs to be disciplined!" He didn’t reply and pulled away. I wondered whether he was going to pursue her. I saw him make a right turn on 4th St.so I got in my car, turned right on 4th, saw that Water St was blocked because of people setting up for Riverwalk Market Fair and assumed that he drove across the bridge. I did likewise and then saw him on Hwy 3, turning right on 2nd. So I don’t know if he caught up to her to issue a warning but it was clear that he didn’t issue a citation. Back in July, I published a blog post titled Ticketing law-breaking bicyclists: if Edina and NYC can do it, why can’t Northfield? in which I cited the problem of bicyclists riding on the wrong side of the street. I was glad to hear from Mark Taylor, Police Chief/Director of Public Safety who said that they would stepping up bicycle law enforcement. It’s perplexing to me why this cyclist was not issued a citation but I’ll see what I can find out. Later in the day when I was telling Robbie about the incident, it occurred to me that I should have asked the bicyclist why she was deliberately riding on the wrong side of the street. My guess is that she would have cited her fears of diagonally-parked cars on the west side of Division backing out into the street and running into her. And that’s something I wrote about back in early July, How to make bicycling in downtown Northfield safer and more popular? Sharrows might work. And see this Sept. 2011 NY Times article: Study Finds Higher Number of Pedestrians Hurt by Bikes.
For those of you snickering: 1) no, I’m not yet suffering from PTSD and expecting the City to provide me with CISD services; and 2) yes, it would have been more than a little ironic if she’d crashed hard into me and then cracked her skull on the pavement because she was not wearing a helmet.
These behaviors both scare drivers and create animosity towards bicycling… and make it less likely that "share the road" efforts will gain broad public support. In yesterday’s NY Times: Penalty for Rule-Breaking Bicyclists: A Remedial Class
I witnessed some close calls while visiting NYC last week, including one incident when a cyclist blasted through a red light and almost hit a pedestrian who then screamed profanities at him. Back in May, Edina Police Chief Jeff Long blogged about the problem:
Does the Northfield Police Department ticket law-breaking bicyclists? I doubt it. I’ve never seen it happen. But it’s time to start.
In May of 2011, I blogged: Do we need a downtown parking hall of shame? No real progress since then, evidently. But it makes me glad that the City Council hasn’t approved the Streetscape Task Force’s request to spend $700,000 for another parking lot. The NDDC, the Chamber, and the Streetscape Task Force need to tackle the problem of chronic downtown parking violators first.
Sheena Basness, Community Service Officer with the Northfield Police Department, stopped by my corner office at GBM last week to tell me about a cheap spay/neuter clinic on that’s coming to town on April 30, hosted by the Minnesota Spay Neuter Assistance Program (MNSNAP). See the Spay and Neuter flier in English and in Spanish. You must pre-register. Call Shirley Taggart at 507-685-2393 to reserve a spot.
More at Nfld Patch: Reduced-Price Spay and Neuter Clinic Coming to Northfield.
Robbie gave the dispatcher (at the Pearl St. 911 Dispatch Center in Owatonna) the license plate #, car description, and our location and description of our car. Within a few seconds, they handed us over to a dispatcher in Northfield. As we entered Northfield, the dispatcher asked us if we were willing to continuing following the car, which turned out to be convenient as it was taking the same route as we were. A Northfield Police Department squad car spotted us just after Jefferson Parkway and Hwy 3 and shortly afterward, followed the car into a neighborhood nearby. Was the driver intoxicated, tired, on a cell phone? No clue. But we felt good that we’d done our civic duty and were pleased with the response by the local law enforcement people on duty. In today’s Northfield News: Burglaries in Northfield down by 40 percent in 2011
Where are the "most likely trouble spots" that would be new? And what might Deputy Police Chief Chuck Walerius mean when he says that the new policing method "takes into account the types of crimes being committed"? I may be able to get him to comment here but it might be helpful to first have some discussion. Maybe I’m the only one who’s puzzled.
The City Council has rejected for now the Streetscape Task Force’s recommendation to:
So what can be done to improve parking availability downtown? Officer Basness said she chalks tires several times a week in the two-hour parking zone downtown. She indicated that there are several (many?) downtown store/building owners and office workers who are chronic offenders, that citations are $10 if paid promptly, and that an accumulation of 5 tickets results in a stiffer fine. I couldn’t find anything (can anyone else find it?) specific about downtown parking in the Municipal Code section ARTICLE IV. – STOPPING, STANDING AND PARKING but Sec. 78-104. – Violation and penalties says:
I like the idea of parking hall of shame website/blog like the Jersey City Parking Hall of Shame Inductees.
Out of respect for Homeland Security guidelines and Quality Bakery, I’ve only identified them as Northfield Police Sergeants A, B, C.
“The success of the Community Expectations policy is what gave me the idea,” said Police Chief Marcus H. Traylor, citing the ordinance that addresses cleanliness, respect, safety, and pedestrian friendliness in the downtown area. (See the April 27, 2009 blog post for more details on that program.) “We asked citizens to behave better downtown over the past year and they’ve done it. We’re confident now that if we ask citizens to consciously avoid breaking laws just one day a week, it’ll save a significant amount of payroll dollars that will help to avoid layoffs.” Why Thursdays? Traylor consulted with area pastors who suggested Thursdays because Wednesday nights are ‘church nights’ in the area. The ministers pointed to the impact of the ‘prayer ladies’ (see the Aug. 2007 blog post Prayer group meets at City Hall) on the improved climate at Northfield City Hall and felt that with a more comprehensive prayer effort, Northfield area crime that’s likely to happen on Thursdays could be bumped into Fridays or even the weekend. Northfield Riverside Baptist Church pastor Cory Ellingston cautioned, however, that the impact of Northfield’s Police yourself Thursdays would have geographic limitations, not unlike the prayer ladies who attend City Council meetings. “Prayers for the City Council are just not as effective if those doing the praying are across the street or down the block,” said Ellingston. “The Dundas Police Department should not expect crime reductions in their city on Thursdays.”
I spoke with Northfield Deputy Police Chief Chuck Walerius this morning. He said it was a helicopter equipped with a FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared) unit from the Minnesota State Patrol Flight Section. They had requested it to help look for a suicidal individual. The individual was eventually found using cell phone triangulation at around 4:30 am. and was rushed to Northfield Hospital in time. See the March Strib story titled Thermal imaging: An eye in Minnesota’s sky. Sheena Basness, Community Service Officer with the Northfield Police Department, alerted me about this year’s Police Association Golf Tournament (4-person best-ball scramble), held on Monday at the Northfield Golf Club. I arrived just in time to watch Northfield Police Chief Mark Taylor (blue shirt) compete in the putting contest. He pretty much sucked and is reportedly considering keeping his day job.
You can sign up now so that the system alerts you via landline phone, cell phone, text message and email. Just visit either the City of Northfield Police Dept. page or the Emergency info page and click on the CodeRed logo/link. You’ll be sent to a special Rice/Steele page on the CodeRed.com website. (I’m deliberately not linking to it from here in case the URL changes.)
Continue reading Verbal abuse of Northfield’s police officers; where’s the line?
Is this good news or bad news?
Notice my red arrow on the photo, however. The victims might want to contest the fines due to the strategic location of the sticky note. Kathy Cooper, Rice County Safe Communities, alerted me to the new DWI task force, called the MOD-Squad (“Modifying Driving Behavior”).
I blogged last year at this time about Rice County’s dubious distinction of being among the deadliest counties in the state for DWI-related deaths and serious injuries. I guess it didn’t do any good because…
We’re planning to have Silkey and Smith on next week’s Locally Grown radio show/podcast. See the Rice County 11/22 press release High Visibility Enforcement Scheduled and the press release of arrests made on Thanksgiving eve titled Coming Soon . . . To A City Near You: Rice County MOD Squad Initial DWI Enforcement Effort Successful in Making the Rice County Roads Safer by Arresting 8 Impaired Drivers. 11:30am update: I’ve added the poster above, as the announcement was just made that Rice County went from 11th to 8th deadliest county in the state. Here’s the email from Deputy Smith explaining the program: Continue reading The Mod Squad now has DWI arrest zones here in Northfield |
|
||
|
Copyright © 2013 Locally Grown Northfield - All Rights Reserved |
|||
When the suspect was finally apprehended mid-morning, the 
I exited the 
Over the past year, the Police Department has received many complaints about bicyclists’ riding behavior in Edina. The primary complaint is that they are not stopping at stop signs and are dangerously weaving in and out of traffic. I have seen this first hand and have become very concerned for their safety and for the consequences of their dangerous travels… I have instructed my officers to begin ticketing bicycle riders that blatantly violate common traffic laws, just as we do with drivers of motor vehicles. This is considered a moving violation and will cost riders about $144.
Robbie and I were returning from the Cities on Hwy 19 about 9 pm on Saturday night and noticed that the car in front of us was swerving erratically. When it crossed the centerline by about 3 feet with oncoming cars, we decided to report it via a call to 911.
While the 
The 
Current Discussion Threads