Twin Cities embracing a marked drop in crime

Mayor R.T. Rybak recalls sitting at a funeral at Shiloh Temple in north Minneapolis, mourning the death of yet another teenager in 2006, a particularly bad year for violence against children in the city.

"I came away from that funeral knowing we had to do something about our juvenile crime problem," said Rybak.

On Thursday, he proudly noted that in the first six months of this year, Minneapolis did not have a single homicide involving a juvenile.

This was no lucky turn of fate alone. Violent crime statistics show that homicides, rapes, robberies and most other crimes have dropped dramatically in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and many other major U.S. cities over the past few years.

"It looks like a national phenomenon," said Andrew Karmen, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. "But no one really knows why."

While some cities credit better police-community relations and increasingly sophisticated databases on criminals, Minneapolis officials who gathered Thursday to discuss the trend traced the city's decline in large part to a plan they came up with three years ago to target juvenile crime, which in 2006 accounted for about half of the serious crime in the city.

"That is an extraordinary victory," said Rybak, who on Thursday released FBI statistics showing that the city's violent crimes, such as homicide, robbery and assault, continue to decline at double-digit rates. "Our goal is not to have a single juvenile murder, and we have met that in the first six months of the year."

Rybak and Police Chief Tim Dolan noted that during the first six months of this year, violent crime in the city is down 17 percent from the same period last year, 28 percent compared with that period in 2007, and 39 percent from where it was during the same period in 2006.

The release of the data came just over three years after 18-year-old Brian Cole was killed in a drive-by shooting in north Minneapolis and mourned by 1,200 people -- including Rybak -- at Shiloh Temple.

"The fact that crime continues to fall for the third year in a row and is now at record-low levels is no accident," Rybak said Thursday afternoon. "We got to this place because we made safety our top ... priority."

But it's clear that crime also is down dramatically many major cities, including New York, Washington, D.C., Boston, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Experts say that while many in the public may be surprised that crime continues to drop during a deep recession, the same thing happened during the Great Depression, with crime lower during the 1930s than it was during the prosperity of the 1920s.

Through the first six months of the year, Minneapolis actually had fewer murders than neighboring St. Paul, traditionally one of the safest large cities in the country.

Sgt. Paul Schnell, a St. Paul police spokesman, said Thursday that officials feel "very positive" about continuing reductions in St. Paul's overall crime numbers, including a 7.8 percent drop in crimes against persons, which includes homicides and rapes, in the first six months, and a 2.1 percent reduction in property crimes.

Paying dividends

Regardless of why it is happening, Minneapolis residents and business people are pleased that police efforts seem to be paying off, especially in north Minneapolis.

They say it is evident that there are ripple effects washing through the city as a result of the lower crime rates.

"The violent crime picture of north Minneapolis has eased," said Ed Anderson, manager of the Cub Foods on West Broadway, which opened in 2004. "We used to have Minneapolis police 24/7. We've been able to cut back on the use of off-duty cops working security."

"All that starts with the violent crime going away," Anderson said. "Then the nuisance [crime] starts going away."

St. Paul residents, too, are noticing -- and appreciating -- the ebb in crime.

Ryan Kapaun, president of the Payne Phalen District Council on the city's East Side, said that he and his neighbors "have noticed that it's been quieter this year than in previous years," with less graffiti and less trouble.

But the most dramatic impact in the Twin Cities has been in north Minneapolis, where police say crime is down more than 40 percent compared to three years ago.

Ezra Hyland, who lives near Girard Avenue N. and 29th Avenue, said he has noticed.

He said many of the problem properties on his street have been eradicated. If he hears sirens these days it is from fire engines or ambulances, not squad cars responding to calls.

"I get nervous when it gets too quiet," Hyland joked Thursday. "So it's been a little hard sleeping lately."