The issue is not that the MPD acknowledged or commented on the murderer's statement about Loesch. Of course they would comment on it. The issue is that Huffman made it sound credible instead of discounting it because it helps their PR strategy regarding crime in that part of the city.

So Dolan bending over backwards to support that fact that Huffman commented on the allegation is meaningless, the issue is the nuance and the way Huffman commented. As Margaret pointed out, it is MORE likely that Loesch turned down the offer of drugs and was beaten and robbed for it.

And of course they make it worse by demoting Adams, the guy who solved the case.
some made up name | 12.04.07 - 2:06 pm | #

The demotion of Adams is the ultimate insult. If Nicolai Kolmanov is to be belived, Adams was disgusted by the way the MPD treated the family.

Dolan is taking a bad situation and making it worse.
Tracy Eberly | Homepage | 12.04.07 - 2:11 pm | #

This is just stupid. After issuing a press release yesterday saying they wouldn't, couldn't comment on pending litigation he writes THIS? This guy is going down and we will be treated to another dance with Rybak trying to find a chief that Clyde Bellacourt, Spike Moss, Ralph Remington and the city council can all love. Plus crime fighting dollars will go to litigation and a big fat settlement.

*They* made the "mistake" of commenting on an open case. It was their press conference. They wanted to make a great show of making an arrest in big case. Instead they cut a hog in the ass by besrmirching the victim unecessarily, simply to make it seem like the public had nothing to worry about, that there was nothing to see here, just move along...They could have just said, we caught the killers, if you commit a crime, you will not escape...we'll get you...blah blah blah. I found that more reassuring than the idea that if something bad happens to me or mine, the MPD will fall all over themselves to make it seem like it's my fault.
Margaret | Homepage | 12.04.07 - 2:27 pm | #

And instead of Huffman eating a little crow once and being done, they've made it worse by the day.
some made up name | 12.04.07 - 2:34 pm | #

"cut a hog in the ass"??

Is that a Venezuelan saying?

I like it!
Tracy Eberly | Homepage | 12.04.07 - 2:34 pm | #

Nope. One of my college roomates from Cinncinnati gave me that one. Aren't you from around there? I'm surprised you haven't heard it before.
Margaret | Homepage | 12.04.07 - 2:38 pm | #

Just thinking here as someone who was once there, and still knows plenty of casual marijuana smokers.
For the smear to be correct we have to accept a few things.

1) The victim is a forty something father of 4, respected everyday kind of regular guy, a health conscious fellow who rides his bike to stay fit.
2) He’s an old ex hippie who still smokes pot. These 2 things are not entirely unreasonable although unlikely.
Even if the guy did smoke weed, white middle-aged pot smokers don’t get their weed like that. Pot smokers have a network of friends and associates to get their shit from.
This is not believable on multiple levels. I doubt the guy was a pot smoker; he does not fit the profile. Even if he were a smoker he’d have his own sources. When weed smokers run out, they buy it from their guy, their friend’s guy or wait for the supply to come in. We’re not talking about heroin addicts here.
After 25 years of smoking weed the guy has no way of a acquiring his herbal supplements than to go and buy those handy $5 ghetto packs from gang banging thugs on the street corner?
Bullshit.
This whole thing stinks.
Sequel | Homepage | 12.04.07 - 2:42 pm | #

Central PA, plenty of Amish and German sayings like:
"Go red up your blog!"
Tracy Eberly | Homepage | 12.04.07 - 2:42 pm | #

Sequel, you are 100% correct.

I know a few poeple over 40 that still smoke and none of them ever buy on the street.

The MPD really fucked this one up.
Tracy Eberly | Homepage | 12.04.07 - 2:44 pm | #

none of them ever buy on the street.
By the time you're that age, you just don't buy from street thugs.
If you've been smoking for 25 years, you probably know a dozen guys where you can get the stuff.
Why buy nasty ass ditch weed on the street for triple the price?
Sequel | Homepage | 12.04.07 - 2:53 pm | #

I never EVER bought on the street, and in my most dazed state would never have dreamed of doing so.
That shit's expensive. You go with what you know.

BTW fortymumble years in Minnesota and this is the first time I've ever heard "cut a hog in the ass"??
Kermit | Homepage | 12.04.07 - 3:29 pm | #

Come on Kermit, we all know you're pushing 60, easy.

You and Sequel and smoke some cigars (no ditch is weed allowed in the Mansion) and compare noted on the "good ole days".
Tracy Eberly | Homepage | 12.04.07 - 3:35 pm | #

Yeah, I'm pushing 60 and you're a shoo-in for best looking blogger award.
Kermit | Homepage | 12.04.07 - 3:40 pm | #

Regarding your tags here Tracy, what is so unfortunate, is that the MPD doesn't really suck, and Dolan has been doing a good job. They are fighting an uphill battle without enough resources. The last thing the people of Minneapolis need is to take the focus of the police away from fighting crime, but clearly Huffman and Dolan have badly mishandled this situation.
some made up name | 12.04.07 - 4:26 pm | #

In this case, yes they suck ass! Every cop should be ashamed that they tried to pawn thier problems off on the family of a dead citizen to further Rybak's PR goals.

They should all stand up and tell management that antics like this will only make thier jobs harder.
Tracy Eberly | Homepage | 12.04.07 - 4:32 pm | #

I actually agree with SMUN. OTOH, A guy I know in law enforcement once called Dolan "a puppet." I don't think I understood that until now, and thinking back on it, the whole Critical Mass episode. Dolan's beholden to Rybak for his job and knows that to keep it, he's got to toe the line. The irony is that he may lose it because he tried a little too hard to make the mayor look good, or supported the head of homicide who was trying to do that.
Margaret | Homepage | 12.04.07 - 5:09 pm | #

Who put a PR flack who’s only qualification as cop is being an ass kisser to the boy mayor in charge of Homicide?

Seriously, why is a PR person in charge of Homicide?
Don’t you want a grizzled veteran in charge there?
Someone like the guy they just canned for doing what is right?

The Mayor and his mental midget minions have been meddling; a complete meltdown of real police work in MPLS can’t be far behind, and we can see what it will look like already.
Sequel | Homepage | 12.04.07 - 5:25 pm | #

You are correct that the rank and file are better than the management, but in this case one of their own did the right thing and was demoted. They should have howled at that alone.

They also need to speak up and tell the citizens that cooperating with the MPD doesn't mean that your name will be dragged through the mud. If they continue to slime the public, they will get less and less support from the public.

Right now that cops have the public's support as we know that they are underfunded and short staffed. Keep this shit up and we'll just tell the cops that they aren't doing their jobs.

Welcome to the road to LA and the Rampart division!
Tracy Eberly | Homepage | 12.04.07 - 5:25 pm | #

who’s only qualification as cop

Oh wait I guess she's just as qualified as Bonnie Blekenrugbiter was as Fire chief.
Sequel | Homepage | 12.04.07 - 5:28 pm | #

Hey, I criticized Huffman, for her actions but I never said she was unqualified. She was a sgt. and then was promoted to Lt. like other cops. The PR job is currently held by a police sgt. She was in the PR job for about as long as I've been writing the blog, or about a year and was recently moved to homicide.

This article in the southwest journal which was written when she was promoted to homicide indicates that she's spent most of her career in the 5th precinct.
http://www.swjournal.com/index.p...152& category=63
Margaret | Homepage | 12.04.07 - 6:58 pm | #

Or like the current slogan of this blog, a person can be wrong without being stupid. The only thing I would hold against her is that she went to Smith.
Margaret | Homepage | 12.04.07 - 7:03 pm | #

Dolan was hired for the same reasons that Tim Brewster was hired by the Gophers to coach football. Influential locals pushed him, he talks a good game and he can suck a golf ball thru a garden hose in one pull.
They both are totally unsuited to do their jobs successfully, overmatched and only further denigrate their own reputations and job positions as they speak of sunsets and rainbows while the rest of the world can only see the butt humping they are receiving.
Midwest Jay | 12.04.07 - 9:09 pm | #

Jay, why all this hate for Dolan? He may not have been the best guy for the job but the only opposition I remember him having was from the race politics crowd who wanted another kumbaya chief like McManus. Rybak initially wanted another national search so we could find another expensive and ineffective showboat who had failed in some other city. Dolan is actually from Minneapolis and was a beat cop here. It was kind of surprising that Rybak went for him in the fact of the opposition of the race people. I'm sure he won't make that mistake twice.

I still think the main problem is with the politics of this city and the Mayor, not so much with the MPD and it's leadership. All of this crap that is happening now stems from that.
Margaret | Homepage | 12.04.07 - 11:22 pm | #

Rybak has little choice. Dolan may not be the anti-christ, but he's not the man we need for the job.

You are 100% correct that Rybak and the city council are the real problem. I have met many of them and, as a bunch, they are dumber than rocks.
Tracy Eberly | Homepage | 12.05.07 - 12:24 am | #

It's vanishingly unlikely that Dolan didn't know that Moss and Company were about to start that up -- Dolan has demoted and/or transferred several high-ranking black cops -- and his support of Huffman, under these circumstances, looks like him circling the wagons in anticipation of that, to keep himself more marketable.
Joel Rosenberg | 12.05.07 - 6:59 am | #

Dolan also has a new discrimination lawsuit to deal with. Gee, that's not getting a lot of play in the news, is it?
Kermit | 12.05.07 - 7:38 am | #

I won't go out on a limb for the guy, but I will say that Dolan's done some good things. I would hate to see those erased by a completely new regime. One undoubtedly focused like McManus was on PC crap instead of policing. And Dolan *is* marketable, the reduction in juvenile crime makes him look really good on paper. He looks especially good because McManus had dismantled the juvenile division.

Rybak hates having to spend money on basic city functions, especially on cops. Rybak would rather spend 0 money on cops and 100% on "re-weaving" the city. He made promises only when outrage was generated over the increase in crime. When homicides went down (the only kind of crime that really grabs headlines) he conveniently forgot all about it.

At the time Rybak kicked Olson out the door I was sure that there was only one kind of chief that would work in Minneapolis and that was a black chief with big city police-politics experience. Black, to put the PC crowd back on it's heels (since it's all about appearances for them anyway) and big city politics experience so that he can run circles around these amateurs at city hall.
Margaret | Homepage | 12.05.07 - 10:35 am | #

OK maybe I was wrong about the qualifications of the PR flack who happens to be a cop with her nose up Rybak's ass.

As I said earlier the police chief needs to be a gizzled veteran cop, like the guy that was just demoted for doing the right thing.
He happens to be a black guy with a stellar rate at solving murders, which fits at least part of Margaret's requirements.
Sequel | Homepage | 12.05.07 - 11:49 am | #

Yeah, they really screwed up firing a qualified black man. The race pimps can team up with everyone who cares about quality police work and beat the shit out of the Department.

They really deserve to have thier asses handed to them for this one.
Tracy Eberly | Homepage | 12.05.07 - 1:04 pm | #

Speaking of pimping, I've got to do it for my blog since long time contributor (to CW and Rambix's blog) Chunkstyle just posted a great comment on my last post on this issue. He thinks there is more to all this than meets the eye.

http://mplscrimewatch.blogspot.c...on- lawsuit.html
Margaret | Homepage | 12.05.07 - 1:22 pm | #

A thank you to Margaret for all she contributes to this blog.
Saverino | 12.05.07 - 5:22 pm | #