The End of Happy Talk

There's a chance Minneapolis could turn a corner after the murder of Evelyn Geng.

The Minneapolis Police Department has a violent offender task force and a violent offender apprehension team, and the minute someone is shot, murdered or seriously assaulted, both of these teams go out and they will hunt the individuals down who did it. And we've had great success with these two units in apprehending violent offenders, and I say this as a warning to anyone who's considering, or will commit one of these crimes in the future: We will catch you. We are on the ball when it comes to tracking people down who commit these crimes, and we do it with just a little bit of information . . . So think twice before you come to Minneapolis to commit some violent crime . . . we will hunt you down if you do this (quote taken from accompanying audio clip).

I'm always told words have meaning. Let's hope so this time.

The press conference was held at the Minneapolis Urban League office, which is still a bit nonsensical, but Chief McManus' statement should offer at least some hope to anyone who lives in or visits Minneapolis. I'm pleased to hear confidence, and a perhaps a touch of hubris, from McManus; I like that in a surgeon, pilot or a chief of police.

On this situation, this issue, and at this press conference, the cowardly mayor was nowhere to be found.

UPDATE: The selective-viewing Nick Coleman is calling on the cops to get out there and crack skulls:

We all know that parts of a big city are no place for the faint of heart. But I marvel at how drug dealers can thumb their noses at the cops while law-abiding people fear for their safety and police chiefs get ticked off when community-relations meetings turn unpleasant. This is big stuff, the stuff that makes or breaks a place.

So far there's been no word on whether Coleman ran his initiative by the inner-city aplogists and chronic crime enablers before letting it out of the barn.