Posted on 08/23/2023 6:32:47 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Alpha News’ Liz Collins calls this a “shocking” video, and it would be — from anywhere else other than Minneapolis or perhaps San Francisco. South Minneapolis had been known as a relatively serene urban area, at least until a few years ago. When the extreme-progressive leadership began capitulating on homelessness, things began to change for residents like Dave Marquardt.
When the city embraced Defund the Police after the George Floyd riots, the problems got exponentially worse, as this video shows. The city and the police have abandoned this historic neighborhood, and now the residents feel besieged, robbed, and betrayed:
“I use the word homeless because they are, but they’re homeless because they are addicted to various substances. Obviously, for some it’s meth, some of it’s fentanyl. I think fentanyl is probably the biggest culprit under there. We find needles every day in our yards,” he added.
He also said the location is attractive for addicts because of the freeway ramps and the ability to panhandle.
“There’s also that industry of a bike chop shop. They steal bikes from all over the neighborhood and we see them disassembling them and taking the parts that are worth something, and the rest of them lay there until somebody comes and cleans them up,” Marquardt said.
He argued that Mayor Jacob Frey treats homeless encampments as a “regulatory” issue and not as a “public health issue.”
Most amazing in this video is the open theft of mail and packages. As Marquardt tells Alpha News, most of the residents in the neighborhood have surveillance cameras and camera doorbells, and one can see why. They apparently believed that getting the thieves on camera would force the police department to arrest them for burglary. Instead of enforcing the law, the police have only provided referrals to fence builders, as if they want to become Angie’s List rather than deal with crime and urban blight.
“Isn’t mail theft a federal crime?” Marquardt laments at one point. Yes, indeed it is, and burglary and theft are also local and state crimes that Minnesota and Minneapolis should enforce. Under the current “enlightened” progressive regime running the city, however, those are low priorities when it comes to the “unsheltered,” or whatever euphemism Minneapolis wants to use at the moment. Their expressed priority is to perform “outreach” to the homeless and offer services to them, not to enforce the law and protect the actual residents of the city.
Even the recognition of the crime by the city on its homeless policy page is remarkably soft-soap:
Community members have expressed concerns about:
- Used needles left on the street and sidewalk
- Water and electricity being siphoned from nearby properties
- Property damage
- People experiencing burglary, threats, assault, and theft
‘Expressed concerns’? They’ve called the cops, who either don’t have the resources or the authority to fight actual crime and vagrancy in the city. And the passive voice in the final bullet item is enough to drive your average composition teacher into a conniption. Do people ‘experience‘ assaults, burglaries, and threats, or are they being victimized by the people who commit those crimes? The city seems to believe that burglary is an ‘experience,’ a word more on par with a visit to the Cedar Cultural Center than having your mail stolen and people defecating on your yard.
Minneapolis may not have advance as far into the urban death spiral as San Francisco, but that certainly seems to be the ambition of Minneapolis leadership. Marquardt doesn’t plan to stick around for the inevitable finale of collapse and ruin:
“I always considered it to be fairly well run, you know, for a city its size and it was generally safe and generally clean, you know, welcoming to people and you know, it was a fun place to have a lot of variety, variety in cuisine, variety in, you know, your neighbors and lots of different people and just it really it was a fun place to live for many. Probably about six or seven years ago is when I started seeing it slip. And then, of course, with the riots and whatnot, it went from slipping to falling,” Marquardt said.
“I renovated my house. It was vacant and boarded up when I got it. It had been for three years. It was a foreclosure and I spent years restoring it, not just putting it back together, but making it look like it’s supposed to look. I never thought I would leave, especially under these circumstances. But I’m not just leaving Minneapolis. I’m leaving Hennepin County,” he said.
One can completely understand his decision, but good luck selling the place under these circumstances.
This is a shameful situation in Minneapolis, and the people who keep electing the moral cowards to leadership there are to blame. But it’s not just Minneapolis where this rot is spreading either, thanks to a refusal to enforce laws and put an end to vagrancy. We had laws against that for a reason, which keeps becoming clearer and clearer, especially to people who have to live in close proximity to these camps. We had involuntary commitment to mental facilities for good reasons as well. Those laws were necessary for public safety and so that residents in American cities could live in peace.
Instead, the cities are slowly abdicating their social contracts to provide that peace, and their residents are quickly becoming besieged by criminals, the mentally ill, and the collapse of needed commerce. Minneapolis may just be on the leading edge of a national crisis.
What belongs in Breaking News:
Dem Controlled City Found To Be Safe and Clean.
(Would be in Babylon News).
1978 South Dakota and Minnesota. It was like smalltown USA. You seldom saw black people, no Muslims, people were old school Democrats or Republicans, and the Indians were the only minorities to speak of. It really wasn’t that long ago, Grease was playing at the theatres, Paradise by the Dashboard light got played a lot on the Jukebox, and I introduced Van Halen to a bunch of people who couldn’t comprehend that music.
The only state that Mondale won...
President Reagan got all the rest...
:)
The end state of importing 10s of thousands from somalia.
I left the Minneapolis suburbs in 1979. We had two black kids that were really smart and attended my High School instead of in the city.
My mom grew up in South Minneapolis. When she was 7 she would take public transportation up to Lake Street for her violin lessons after school. By herself. Her dad had a shop on Hennepen and she would walk over there afterwards and ride home with her dad.
It was the street car, and about 1925, but still...
Minneapolis used to be a nice place. But Democrats ruin every nice place they get their hands on. If you want to know what Democrats will do to this country, look at any city run by Democrats.
Wherever policing is defunded, urban blight follows everywhere it’s implemented. People who vote for these suicidal policies are The Walking Dead zombies. The drug addicts are the human survivors. At least they know what they’re trying to achieve.
Nice to hear, vote for sh## get sh##
Unmentioned is that these homeless encampments are in middle class and business areas.
Even a drugged out junkie knows that if he sets up his tent in the ghetto and annoys people there, they will just shoot him with as little regard as they shoot each other, and the police will not care. Meanwhile if a middle class resident beats up a bum for crapping in his yard, the police WILL arrest the homeowner.
Crop duster. Haha! Love it!
We get a helicopter spraying the wetlands around us for mosquitos. Big excitement! They fly so low they shake the house.
Same here with amenities. Our only hardware store left a few years ago which is a bummer. Otherwise we’re good with a grocery store, pharmacy, bank and five restaurants. Population is around 5,000.
The city government is based on the political notion of Kissing Black Ass
The only crime to be thoroughly investigated is te death of a Black criminal caught in the act
The task of the coalition of City States is ruling America.
The Coalition of City States is the mortal enemy of America
And everybody here either knows you by your first name or by your nickname.
The skyscrapers of years past have been replaced with grain silos.
Every Saturday, if you want to go to the hardware store, you have to race against the noon testing of the city tornado siren, because that's when the hardware store closes.
Every forth Friday the firetrucks get moved out of the firehouse to make room for the professional wrestling troupe that comes in. Some of those fire trucks are classics from the 50's and 60's, and are in excellent condition.
The trick here is to not become so popular that you end up having to pick toilet paper out of your trees the morning after Halloween.
And, if you feel tempted to hire young Bishop to move some bricks around your property, forget it! Word's out that his upper body workout is not up to par.
Such is life in the hinterlands of rural West TN!
“the hinterlands of rural West TN!” - bkmk
Loved your reply. TP in the trees. Doesn’t happen here much after October. Snow and all.
The description of your town is spot on.
I see the same people everywhere I go in town. Always pleasant, always kind. It wasn’t that way in Minneapolis.
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