What happened to the Police Man's Brain?

[Chimera]

Right now we have two cases here in Minnesota that are downright pissing me off. I hope they figure things out soon.

Case 1: Leanna (same name as my sister), a 5-year-old from Chisolmn MN goes out for a walk in the neighborhood and vanishes. The Police refuse to issue an 'Amber Alert', saying that there is "no evidence of foul play". A number of days later, ever widening search parameters, still no sign of the kid.

Case 2: An 79 year old woman from St. Paul has her SUV stolen. They find it outside some girl's trailer and bust her and her boyfriend. A couple of days later, the woman is dead. She was found yesterday, beaten so badly that they identified her by her jewelry.

For the second time, the SUV is found in front of this girl's trailer!

The girl is now charged with two counts of stealing the SUV, but the police say the two "are not suspects".

Just what the fuck is going on here?

[Brutus]

Blame the prosecutors, not the police (in the second case, at least).

[Zenster]

I blame sheer outright incompetence.

[lno]

From the local Mpls paper's article:

Earlier Thursday, a St. Paul woman had been charged with two counts of auto theft in connection with two incidents this month, including one Tuesday, in which Shirley Shepherd's sport-utility vehicle was stolen.

Tekela L. Richardson, 20, was being held in the Ramsey County jail in lieu of $20,000 bail. Police, speaking before the body was found, said she and others had been interviewed in connection with Shepherd's disappearance.

Right now, the police know more than we do about Ms. Richardson's potential involvement in Shirley Shepherd's disappearance and death. I'm withholding judgment on their handling of that case for the time being. As a correction to the OP, the SUV was found in front of an acquaintance of Ms. Richardson the second time, not in front of her trailer itself.

Regarding the Amber Alert:

The case illustrates the difficult choices that confront law enforcement authorities when deciding whether to issue an alert.

Guidelines require evidence of a nonfamily abduction and imminent harm to a person who is 17 or younger. Chisholm police said again on Tuesday that there is no indication that Leanna was abducted.

Officials say they want to save the alerts for rare cases when other police techniques aren't as effective, so the public is not desensitized to them.
...
At the Missing Children Minnesota office in Minneapolis, director Carol Watson agreed with concerns about overusing the alert. But she also wondered whether Leanna's case didn't merit the warning.

"We have to . . . limit it to the most serious cases," she said. "But this is a child of 5 years out of her zone of safety, which would be her parents' eyesight. That is a very serious case. . . . We need to be pulling out all the stops."

Now, I realize that both of these are sensitive incidents, but I do ask that subsequent posters read the news articles and familiarize themselves with the stories before castigating the authorities involved. They may well be negligent and incompetent, but at least become informed first.

[Chimera]

Gee, a friend's house. Gosh, that just totally invalidates everything I said, doesn't it. :wally

Today, they finally decided the 5 year old girl had been "taken". Imagine if they had acted on the from the git-go.

[sarcasm]

So much better to have all the nitty gritty facts right but still be a stupid fucker, eh Ino?

[/sarcasm]

[lno]

Well, first, the name is lno and not Ino. But I suppose you don't care, as you've decided I'm a stupid fucker anyway.

Second, you had precisely zero (count 'em - that's zero) links in your OP for people who wanted to understand why the police did what they did. Speculative ranting is very fun, of course (watch, I'll do it myself. Chimera likes fucking goats! That's the only reason he's such a stupid fucker.) but I tried to provide a little backstory to your rants.

Now, please, sir, explain how I am a stupid fucker for posting what I did and asking that people read the articles first.

[lno]

Ah, I see I completely missed the first line of your post. My apologies, I'll address it here.

When I clarified where Shirley Shepherd's SUV was found the second time, I made no judgment on your OP, simply cleared up a minor incorrect fact. The gist of my respose to that incident was that the police have spoken to Ms. Richardson and are more informed than you are. She and her boyfriend may well be guilty, and may well be charged. Right now, though, neither you nor I know enough to accurately evaluate her guilt or innocence. Did I totally invalidate everything you said? Nope, and your claim that it did just devalues your arguments.

Of course, if you'd rather froth at the mouth and form a lynch mob, go right ahead.

[Chimera]

"but...but... YOU didn't cross your 't's and dot your 'i's!"

From there you go into a straw man bashing rage. (what was that about devaluing my arguments, Mr. Pot?)

Who said anything about a lynch mob?

But I admit the frothing part. This is the pit, after all.

[lno]

Hey, I think we both got off on the wrong foot here. I didn't mean to devalue your arguments, but rather present some more information to try to show to other posters on what the police may have based their decisions. That is, to try to minimize the number of people who think nothing more than "Shit, those cops are so idiotic!" I apologize.

I agree with you that they were mistaken in not using the Amber Alert from the start. They made their decision, and I suspect it'll be a subject of debate for some time to come.

(Straw man? Where?)

[Chimera]

Alright, alright. Yes, we did get off on the wrong foot and both got nasty. Sorry about that.

But I live in Minnesota, so these are local stories. I've seen them on the news, I've read them in the paper.

In the child case, it just bothered the hell out of me (and my wife, who jumped off the couch screaming at the TV) that they refused to even consider the idea that she might have been taken. It came across as willful stupidity to watch the local police rep poo-poo-ing the idea on local TV.

In the other case, they did initially say that the woman and her boyfriend were "not suspects", which, on the face of it, seems utterly insane. Considering that just about everyone who knows someone who is murdered is initially considered as a possible suspect.

But then, the "Tru Master" (or whatever he called himself), a St. Paul guy who recruited gay men for rough sex and then is thought to have killed at least three of them (There are at least two other guys who disappeared without a trace, with this guy as their last known stop), was sentenced lately for the one murder he was proven to have committed. SIX FUCKING YEARS. That's all.

The pattern seems to indicate that there is something deeply rotten in the Minnesota Criminal Justice System.

I won't even go into the details of the Sorted Affair of the Crack House Across the Street, aka the events of last summer.

[Mirror Image egamI rorriM]

Her name is Tekela? Like Tequila...?

Well, at least we know what her mother was drinking.

[Thrasymachus]

Originally posted by lno

I agree with you that they were mistaken in not using the Amber Alert from the start. They made their decision, and I suspect it'll be a subject of debate for some time to come.

So, wtf is this "Amber Alert" (and capitalized too?) for us non MN folks?

I'm imagining something like the Bat Signal from the old comic books. You know, that the the cops use only as a last resort when the chips are down and they need a superhero to save the day.

[Neurotik]

Originally posted by Thrasymachus
So, wtf is this "Amber Alert" (and capitalized too?) for us non MN folks?

AFAIK, Amber Alerts are nationwide. We just had one here in Arlington yesterday afternoon. It's when a child is reported as being abducted, the emergency system is activated with descriptions, etc. Televisions in the area will beep and give you a rundown on the situation, same with radios, and other public announcement signs.

[Neurotik]

Oh yeah, Amber is a reference to a name of a girl who was abducted - not the color.

[Weirddave]

Originally posted by Chimera

The pattern seems to indicate that there is something deeply rotten in the Minnesota Criminal Justice System.

So why don't you fly completely off the handle without providing any sources of background information for those of us not in Minnesota, attack a local poster who tries to provide more details and then shreak loudly about cases in which you are not involved and have no personal knowledge of, using nothing more than a 30 secons spot on the news as basis?

That outta acomplish something.

[Chimera]

As opposed to accomplishing nothing, like you.

Actually, it had pretty much been made clear that I have more knowledge of the cases than just a 30 second spot on the news.

And I don't have to be personally involved to say something about it.