Early in October, Malcolm Gladwell, one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in 2005, appeared in Minneapolis at two events sponsored by the Council on Crime and Justice discussing changes to the criminal justice system for the future, using the principles in his book "The Tipping Point."
As the city of Minneapolis puts its budget together, officials should look at another treatise of Gladwell, "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking," on the process of arriving at good decisions. One example (page 233) deals with having two police officers in a squad car, something that at first glance may seem to make sense in terms of providing backup and additional safety.
The answer is surprising and is the reason that Gladwell tells us that many well-run police departments have moved to one-person squad cars. Two-person cars have a far worse record of complaints filed against them for grievous incidents. The simple reason is that a single officer will move more slowly with reduction of bravado. As Gladwell states, "when police officers are by themselves, they slow things down and when they are with someone else, they speed things up -- a policeman by himself takes more time to analyze the situation, waiting for a back up and is not prone to violence."
Gladwell goes into detail about several of the cases of police behavior that shocked the nation (like Amadou Diallo shot 41 times by police in the Bronx while just trying to get into his own house). We should note that in both the recently settled case of Duy Ngo ($4.5 million cost to the city) and the still to be determined case of park policeman Mark Bedard killed by a police car, squad cars with two officers were involved. On a more pedestrian issue, a squad car responding to a plant vandalism episode in my neighborhood also came with two officers.
These settlement amounts are a shocking postscript to the obvious financial savings of one rather than two officers to a squad car. When will Minneapolis join other police departments that have made this sensible change?
STATE REP. PHYLLIS KAHN, DFL-MINNEAPOLIS
There goes the neighborhood Your Nov. 28 article "An energy model for all to see," about a wind turbine in Maple Grove, certainly tells it all! I am looking out my front window and see this eyesore!
My husband and I specifically chose to live in Maple Grove three years ago as we were very impressed with their "master plan" of residential and commercial. It was very well orchestrated. Note that I say "was." This vulgar wind turbine completely desecrates this once wonderful Arbor Lakes area. Now, don't get me wrong; I am not saying that I do not agree that wind turbines have their place and are certainly an alternative energy source, but the once-beautiful Arbor Lakes area is not the place.
