Sunday, July 11, 2010

2819 Knox Avenue North Raided By SWAT Team




Photos and blog post by John Hoff

This Friday, about mid-day, Jordan Neighborhood "super citizen" Megan Goodmundson called me with a cryptic message:

"COPS! On the Jordan Pond! COME RIGHT NOW!"

I knew from Megan's tone that this wasn't run-of-the-mill North Minneapolis police activity, but something higher up the action scale. I was a couple blocks away and literally ran all the way. I arrived just in time to watch a Minneapolis Police Department SWAT team batter down the door of the garage behind 2819 Knox Ave. N. (Top photo)

After the SWAT team left, three squad cars remained in front of the house, and appeared to be keeping themselves busy inside the home.

This house...

...is on the lovely Jordan Pond, but isn't one of the nicer homes filled with nicer people. The house is owned by absentee landlord Rodney S. Bustrom of St. Francis, Minnesota who lives at 1858 242nd Ave. It is unknown how many other houses Bustrom owns and what worrisome patterns might be found by scrutinizing his pattern of property ownership. As Johnny Northside Dot Com has mentioned to the wind about a hundred times, the Minneapolis property website is searchable by address and property identification number, but NOT by name of owner. So if we want to obtain and publish a list of Bustrom's properties, we need to get that list some other way.

Neighbors on the Jordan Pond report that, at one time, pit bulls were kept in the garage of the property but these neighbors are not definite about when that period of time was. Results of Friday's police raid are unknown.

Johnny Northside Dot Com extends a personal "thank you" to the police officers who put their lives at risk to keep our neighborhood safe by raiding the (alleged) scum bags who live at 2819 Knox Ave. N., and I hope they found what they were looking for.

7 comments:

Pond-dragon said...

Yep, folks been watching this place for some time already. The owner doesn't answer the phone when you call, clear to see why!

Anonymous said...

I hope they got some weed off the streets. Or maybe it had something to do with underage drinking.

Either way, god bless the fourth precinct.

Anonymous said...

Maybe they were after the buy who filled the garage with stolen phonebooks.

Johnny Northside! said...

To the commenter above: it is not possible to steal litter nobody wants.

To Pond Dragon: You bet he doesn't answer his phone. Maybe send the guy a letter?

General Disarray said...

I hope they caught the guy if he was mistreating pit bulls.( I hope they got him no matter what he did ) I see how they treat the dogs and I just want to yell at them and tell them that they are the reason that so many dogs get put down. I'm sick of seeing pit bulls on big chains or locked up in a vacant lot.
I had a pit bull for 11 years and she was the best dog ever..She was stolen once and forced to fight but refused and was seriously injured by the man who had stolen her by hitting her with a bat.
you should have to take classes to get a dog or a cat (maybe even a child) I wish that the cops would take this problem with mistreatment of pit bulls more seriously cause these dogs can be the most timid well behaved dogs.

just stop judging them and give them a chance.

Jeff Skrenes said...

When I have a garage, I WILL fill it with unwanted phone books, and then do something fun or interesting with my finds.

And yes, let me reiterate the call for the Minneapolis and Hennepin County websites to be searchable by property owner.

(Comment submitted from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania)

Anonymous said...

Hmmm...

I just might have an idea on a way to "screen scrape" the website's data and put it into a database that could be searched by property owner.

I'll give it a try this weekend if I remember.

I'm no fan of police (I believe in an ideal world that drugs and prostitution would be legalized and taken off of the streets), but I love how you're taking back the neighborhoods from the the thugs and vultures.