In “Frey off to a rocky begin after marketing campaign vows of change” (Minnesota part, Feb. 20) we be taught that lately re-elected Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey doesn’t have the general public help that he wants to maneuver town ahead now that some earlier supporters are pulling again their help. And in answering questions in regards to the killing of Amir Locke, Frey takes a place made well-known by Richard Nixon — I take full duty, nevertheless it wasn’t my fault. Frey additionally claims to be an advocate for transparency.
The Star Tribune Editorial Board is on document (correctly) demanding a full investigation of the occasions of Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington, D.C. However the place is the investigation of the occasions of late Might 2020 in Minneapolis, the Star Tribune’s yard?
We all know what occurred on thirty eighth Avenue and Chicago Avenue S. on Might 25, 2020, and the officers concerned are going through no matter accountability our authorized system can present. However the place is the accountability for what passed off exterior the Third Precinct Station (my precinct) on Might 28, and alongside Lake Avenue? The place is the complete investigation by our authorized system? Or by the Star Tribune? Neither Frey nor then-Police Chief Medaria Arradondo has ever defined why there was zero police presence throughout these troublesome 48 hours; let’s begin with that.
John Okay. Trepp, Minneapolis
Table of Contents
POLICING AND MENTAL HEALTH
A tiny, deceptive assertion within the Feb. 25 front-page article “Jury: Ex-cops violated Floyd’s rights” illustrates the overall neglect of the psychological well being elements of the case. The assertion reads: “They responded to a name from a clerk that Floyd had used a counterfeit $20 invoice to purchase cigarettes.”
The clerk’s considerations in making the decision have been well-reported: He was primarily involved about George Floyd’s well being, each psychological and bodily, and needed to make it possible for Floyd bought the assistance that he wanted. The officers’ response to Floyd’s irrational resistance to coming into a police automobile, to his full terror, exhibits their woeful lack of coaching in dealing appropriately with mental-health points, as effectively their having been mistrained to understand the legendary “excited delirium.”
For a few years, we as a society have been slicing funding for coping with psychological sickness, as if we too have an irrational worry of going through it. As long as we proceed to yield to this worry, we are able to anticipate extra disasters in police conduct and different areas that badly want psychological well being sources and coaching.
Paul Andrew Swenson, St. Paul
JUDGES AND EMOTIONS
I am unable to assist listening to damaging feedback in regards to the decide who cried whereas giving out former police officer Kimberly Potter’s sentence (“Potter granted leniency in Wright killing,” Feb. 19). I notice there are various opinions about this matter and have listened to many sides. A unique decide wrote in regards to the topic within the Opinion Alternate part of the Star Tribune a number of days later (“Why I’ve cried on the bench,” Feb. 24).
With all that has occurred previously two years, I’d ask you: “Why aren’t you crying?”
Rena Lindgren, Minnetonka
WHAT KIDS ARE BEING TAUGHT?
That is for all of the mother and father and political varieties who’re crying about mother and father needing to see lecturers’ lesson plans forward of time in order that they know what their youngsters are studying. My daughter-in-law and son are each lecturers. They simply had parent-teacher conferences. They each stayed after college for 4 hours to satisfy with mother and father. My daughter-in-law had just one dad or mum present up, and my son had eight mother and father. They each have a number of college students who’re struggling of their courses, however not a lot dad or mum curiosity. Aren’t these conferences a great way to speak face-to-face along with your kid’s instructor?
Julie Koplitz, Cambridge
THE CATHOLIC FAITH
Notably absent from the Jan. 20 article on the rising polarization in native Catholic parishes (“Whose traditions? Catholic tensions develop”) was any “excellent news,” and that reality ought to trigger all of us who’re Catholic nice disappointment.
Finished effectively, parish life gives a house for believers to have fun life’s deeply significant moments, to commune with each other and the Divine, and to search out power for our shared journey right here on Earth. However the gospel message we’re known as to proclaim, the excellent news of forgiveness, therapeutic and life’s final victory over loss of life, is muffled, muted or wholly undermined by an overt, inflexible give attention to common church regulation and a relentless hunt to find out who amongst us isn’t “Catholic sufficient.” Is it any marvel why we see so lots of our fellow Catholics seeking out new locations to feed their souls?
Whereas there are those that embrace a return to a bygone age of conventional language, gown and liturgical apply as the very best or purest solution to worship, I am undecided how such a retrograde method does something greater than pacify the preferences of a choose few whereas ignoring the true wants of an ideal many. As a result of if God is who we are saying God is, maybe our parish life has much less to do with correctly following a church rule e-book and extra to do with residing a shared life that brings therapeutic and hope to our bigger communities. And that will be excellent news, certainly.
Joe Kolar, St. Paul
PREVENTING ABORTION
In a Feb. 10 front-page article on the urgency of the struggle for abortion on the State Capitol, and in a Feb. 20 letter to the editor, amongst all of the discourse and divide on the subject, I positioned one widespread theme: males masquerading behind their spiritual beliefs to dictate girls’s reproductive rights and decisions.
what I wasn’t capable of finding? Males who’re keen to supply their very own our bodies — vasectomies to stop undesirable pregnancies, maybe? — with the intention to put [their] “convictions earlier than God” to defend life, as Rep. Tim Miller, R-Prinsburg, stated he’ll proceed to do — with out inconveniencing males’s our bodies and rights, after all.
Bailey R. Meixner, Minneapolis
BOOK BANS
Steve Sack’s Feb. 20 cartoon (“Our youngsters have a studying drawback: They wish to”) introduced again reminiscences of the banning of “Woman Chatterley’s Lover” and “Tropic of Most cancers.” If there had been any solution to get my palms on these books in my rural hometown, I’d have carried out so, as a result of I used to be very curious to see what the fuss was all about. Do not the mother and father who need sure books banned notice that they are really driving the youngsters to discover a solution to learn them? And youngsters at this time can discover something they need on their smartphones. Even in rural Minnesota.
Sally Thomas, Edina
We wish to hear from you. Ship us your ideas right here.