A lobbyist recently asked U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum to author a letter of support for a $750,000 federal grant to fund a new software program, crime analyst and other tools in the St. Paul Police Department.
The goal was to share data about gunshots with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, a first step toward gunshot detection hardware.
McCollum’s staff read through the U.S. Department of Justice grant application and were taken aback by the fact that a lobbyist for ShotSpotter, which makes gunshot detection hardware, took the lead in distributing it.
No one from the city or the police department had reached out directly.
And the language seemed to parrot that of President Donald Trump’s repeated description of urban areas as hotbeds of racial violence, McCollum’s senior staffer wrote. The grant application, which references a supposed increase in “organized crime,” singled out the Green Line light-rail corridor as a source of gang trouble.
“I wanted to let you know our office will not be supporting the attached request for Department of Justice funding,” said Bill Harper, chief of staff to McCollum, in a July 19 email to St. Paul City Council members and their staff. “The (application) is extremely troubling in its mischaracterization of St. Paul and its residents. … Furthermore, the inaccurate manner in which the Green Line is characterized undermines the necessary work to advance transit funding.”
Within the application, a 10-page “statement of problem” from the St. Paul Police Department emphasizes that more than half the city population is composed of racial minorities: “Young adults (are) being drawn into gangs, prostitution and drug dealing to survive. … Gun violence is increasingly being committed across city boundaries due in part to the recently opened Green Line, a light rail system that connects the region’s two downtowns, Minneapolis and St. Paul.”
The reality, as evidenced by FBI and police department data, is more complicated.
Gunshots have been on the increase in St. Paul in recent years, but they declined 25 percent last year from 2017.
Other crimes also have risen and fallen from year to year, with robbery reports down 20 percent in 2018. Citywide, crime fell about 7 percent last year.
On Friday, McCollum noted in a public Facebook post that she “support(s) community solutions to crime and gun violence prevention, not stigmatizing my constituents of color. Public safety starts with the community, not with corporate lobbyists for ShotSpotter trying to sell software.”
COUNCIL MEMBERS WANT SHOTSPOTTER
Some city council members were taken aback by the negative reaction, noting that it’s not uncommon for advocacy groups to put issues in a stark light when they apply for public grants.
Council member Jane Prince, who represents Dayton’s Bluff and other East Side neighborhoods, informed McCollum’s office in a July 19 email that criminal violence in her ward is all too real.
Two of the area’s three rec centers were shuttered or demolished around the time of the recession, she said, and two sites have only recently reopened.
“But over the decade they were closed, we failed to serve a large population of children in poverty, for whom gun violence has become all too common,” Prince noted. “The ages of youth obtaining guns on the East Side has dropped … and with it an increase in senseless gun violence that is hurting everyone in our community, including these young people.”
During a budget discussion on July 17, City Council President Amy Brendmoen, council member Dai Thao and others encouraged St. Paul Police Chief Todd Axtell to seek grant funding for ShotSpotter gunshot detection hardware and deploy it as soon as possible.
Minneapolis has used the California company’s equipment since 2007, and the gunshot-detection hardware has since rolled out to or expanded within dozens of cities, including New York City, Chicago, Miami, Fresno, Denver and Sacramento.
The police department submitted an application for a $750,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice about seven weeks ago, said Assistant Chief Robert Thomasser.
It’s aimed at assisting the department’s efforts to reduce the number of shots fired and people injured by gunfire, he said Friday.
The grant would not fund ShotSpotter hardware, but “it would help the city control some of the investigative expenses that would come from investment in that technology,” he said.
If the police department eventually gets funding for ShotSpotter, it would help “hone in on where shots are fired … and we know that would lead to the recovery of more evidence.”
The application notes that the areas immediately adjacent to the Green Line “year after year have consistently been the hottest grids in the city,” with the top three types of incidents reported being shots fired, robbery with a gun and aggravated assault.
On Axtell’s first day as police chief in 2016, he announced that addressing gun violence was his top priority.
“I can certainly understand why the description of the problem in the grant application might sound alarming — hearing about gun violence, gang activity, prostitution … can be difficult, and it’s not our intention to paint this great city in a negative light,” Thomasser said. “We have a great city filled with wonderful people, but unfortunately we also have some neighborhoods that are affected by violence, and this … happens every day. For us, it’s not a political issue.”
The police department didn’t ask for McCollum’s support and was unaware that a ShotSpotter representative did, Thomasser said.
Nevertheless, McCollum has been a longtime supporter of the police department and “a champion for St. Paul,” he said.
DC LOBBYIST WORKS FOR SHOTSPOTTER
The St. Paul Police Department’s request for a $750,000 “Local Law Enforcement Crime Gun Intelligence Center Integration Initiative Grant” from the DOJ was circulated by Amanda Wood, a lobbyist with the Washington firm of Becker & Poliakoff, which has been lobbying local, state and federal agencies to adopt ShotSpotter.
A phone call to Wood was not returned on Friday.
“Due to increased organized crime activities, the Twin Cities region is facing a significant spike in violent crime, with steep increases in gun related homicides, assaults and weapon discharges,” reads a draft letter to U.S. Attorney William Barr, circulated by the lobbyist with the intent of having St. Paul’s congressional delegation copy and sign it.
Citywide, certain types of crime have indeed trended up, though perhaps not as dramatically as suggested by the DOJ application.
There was an average of nearly 13 homicides annually in St. Paul in the four years before the Green Line opened and an average of 18 homicides per year in the four years after the Green Line, based on FBI data. The overall numbers don’t indicate where the homicides occurred.
Year to year changes in crime data are not uncommon.
In fact, criminal homicides were down 32 percent in St. Paul last year compared to the year before — there were 22 documented homicides in 2017, compared to 15 in 2018.
In 2013, the year before the Green Line opened, there were 14 criminal homicides in St. Paul.
There were six homicides with a firearm reported in 2014, compared with 11 in 2018.
There were 137 fewer robbery reports last year, which represented a year-to-year decrease of nearly 20 percent. On the flip side, rape, auto theft and aggravated assault showed year-to-year increases.
While crime ebbs and flows, population growth in the capital city has mostly trended up following decades of losses or limited gains. Both St. Paul and Minneapolis have led the region’s population growth since 2010.
Mara H. Gottfried contributed to this report.
