Update: 8 murders in 10 months at Minneapolis homeless encampments — and other top public safety news
Last week we reported that two shootings at south Minneapolis homeless encampments had left three dead and three wounded. Those incidents raised the number of people murdered at or around a homeless encampment to seven in the past ten months. This week, one of the surviving shooting victims Samantha Joe, 35, died of her injuries, raising the number to eight murders in ten months.
Earl Bennett, 40, was taken into custody last week after an incident with him in St. Paul, involving a gun, led to him being shot by police. He has since been charged with three of the four murders that occurred in homeless encampments last week.
MPD Chief Brian O’Hara has previously reported that 13% of all crimes, and nearly one in five gun violence incidents in south Minneapolis’s 3rd precinct occur within 500 feet of one of the many homeless encampments there.
Triple shooting in Dinkytown near the U of M
Three men aged 17, 18, and 22, were shot after a physical confrontation occurred at the intersection of 4th St. SE and 13th Ave. in Dinkytown, intertwined with the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis. One of the men was transported to the hospital by ambulance with life-threatening injuries, while the other two men were dropped off at two separate hospitals in the ensuing 20 minutes. My colleague Bill Glahn wrote about the incident here, noting the typical lack of pertinent information about suspects or the victims.
The shooting took place at an intersection with a history of violence in recent years. A restaurant located at the intersection was dramatically hit by multiple gunshots just a couple of years ago, and the violence in the area has led the U of M to open a new “Safety Center” located just a few blocks away.
The “Godfather” of progressive prosecutors is removed in Los Angeles
George Gascon, known as the “Godfather” of the progressive prosecutor movement, and the current Los Angeles County District Attorney, failed to win his re-election attempt this week after surviving two previous attempts by Los Angeles citizens to remove him by a recall petition process.
Gascon was the co-author of a disastrous 2014 California law that aimed to reduce incarceration rates by reducing many drug and property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors.
The law itself was removed during the election this year as well. California voters voted yes to Proposition 36, which reinstated harsher criminal penalties aimed at reducing the explosion of retail theft, homelessness, and drug use.
We’ve shared information about the insidiousness of the progressive prosecutor movement, including Hennepin County’s own Mary Moriarty. Read one of those pieces here.
Chad Aanerud, 35, of Brainerd has been charged with 12 felonies including murder for the violence he carried out on Halloween night.
Aanerud went to the home of an adult female and sexually assaulted her before setting her home ablaze and threatening to shoot her four children. Her children fled the house, and Aanerud shot and killed a neighbor who came to check on the woman. After killing the neighbor, Aanerud abducted the woman, and her children who had gone to another house, prompting the Amber Alert to go out statewide.
Aanerud was taken into custody the next morning near Little Falls after the woman and her kids were safely recovered. 13 stolen firearms were reportedly recovered from Aanerud’s car.