Downtown Mpls. Businesses Feel Ignored by City in Crime Plan

Fights, stabbings, shootings and more. Sunday night often turns into chaos in the Warehouse District in downtown Minneapolis, but now the city is fighting back.

Police are targeting the time periods with the most crime. The city says 80 percent of violent crimes downtown take place between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m., especially on Saturday and Sunday nights. It's a problem we investigated earlier this month.

The agreements with several clubs include that they stop hosting under-21 events on Sunday nights; use "enhanced" wristbands to identify people at under-21 events; and have uniformed security and off-duty police officers at all events.

Many people and business owners hope the changes will stop the violence.

Click here to read the full changes proposed by city leaders on Thursday.

Joanne Kaufman, executive director of the Warehouse District Business Association, said her organization was not consulted and not invited to Thursday's news conference.

"I don't know what their motive was for not including us. I just know that they didn't," Kaufman said in an interview.

In fact, Kaufman said she only learned about the city's proposed changes after 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS sent her the city's news release.

"We were told actually this morning by the city that there was no press conference today," she said.

Kaufman said she worries the city's proposed changes are nothing more than a band-aid, shuffling the problem down the block.

"We seem to have a security and a safety issue almost every summer. So there's something inherently wrong."

---

 

Tweet