St. Paul police officials and the president and CEO of Catholic Charities got an earful at a public meeting Thursday night from residents of Ramsey Hill, where a 7-year-old girl was abducted in broad daylight and sexually assaulted a week earlier.
"This is an unfathomable crime," Interim Police Chief Kathy Wuorinen said after addressing a crowd of about 200 that gathered at St. Paul College. "It was painful for our entire city, especially the residents of Ramsey Hill, as well as residents living in the North End, because we had another child assaulted there as well.
"I feel like we had a very productive meeting tonight, and while it was painful at times for me to hear what the community had to say, I do understand it. I feel frustrated myself," the interim chief said.
According to police officials, the conversation at Thursday night's meeting was raw at times and the crowd's anger was quick.
Mary Nash, senior commander of the Western District, was going through a list of safety tips when several attendees essentially told her to get on with it. She segued into details of what happened the evening of May 5:
The 7-year-old girl and her father were in the 300 block of Dayton Avenue as he checked on a property he owns. The girl was out of his sight just a minute when she went missing.
Police were able to obtain descriptions from several witnesses of a man who had been in the area "acting strangely." The girl was later found in a room at a Catholic Charities residence. Mark S. Meihofer, 47, was charged Friday with kidnapping and first-degree sexual assault.
Meihofer has been the subject of several police calls in the past year, one involving a man exposing himself to a woman, another about a man who appeared to be watching children at a nearby park. He was charged in Anoka County in 2011 after he offered a 13-year-old girl $10,000 to have sex with him. He was found not guilty because of mental illness and civilly committed for a year.
