North Minneapolis Is Fed Up With The Dumping Of Level Three Sex Offenders!

Photos and blog post by John Hoff

On March 31, fed up with the dumping of yet more Level Three sex offenders in North Minneapolis, neighbors gathered at St. Olaf Lutheran church to confront the Department of Corrections and MPD to question the continued practice of allowing dangerous predatory perverts to live bunched up in the same zip code, the same block and--in this instance--probably inside the same house. (That would be the "rapist village" in the duplex at 3008/3010 Emerson Ave. N.)

Using "utility pole sign spam" re-purposed to make protest signs, I showed up with my girlfriend Megan. We brought a few extra signs for other people, including some blanks so folks could make their own messages. Council Member Don Samuels was there. He grabbed a Magic Marker and made a sign calling attention to the fact five sex offenders had been dumped in a one block area.

KARE-11 was there, and our protest was the lead story that night, click here for KARE-11 story.

Here are some more images and more details about that stormy meeting.

First of all, individuals like Jon Hinchliff of MPD are low-level bureaucrats who (while they certainly must bear some blame and heat for "only following orders") are not the ultimate authorities who are allowing the L3S0 dumping in North Minneapolis. Next time the higher-ups at DOC should show some nerve and show up in person to take the heat...


So let's talk about Jon. First of all, I don't think the man reads North Minneapolis blogs very much even while these blogs are constantly discussing and reporting upon the issue of Level Three sex offenders, a subject you would think interests Hinchliff since it's his paycheck. When I made reference to that fact one homeless level three sex offender was listed at the "intersection of Plymouth and Broadway," an intersection that DOES NOT EVEN EXIST, Hinchliff had no freaking clue what or who I was talking about even though I blogged about it a long time ago and then--because I was so unhappy about this specific situation with the imaginary "Plymouth and Broadway" intersection, I started to create "sex offender public forums" on my blog for anybody to post information they might dig up about these various Level Three sex offenders, click here for an example.

In fact, at the March 31 meeting, Hinchliff tried to say there was no Level Three sex offender with the last name "Lacy."

After Hinchliff had made this statement, he tried to back away from it and say there was no SUPERVISED Level Three sex offender named "Lacy." Uh huh. Like the distinction between "supervised" and "unsupervised" is so very meaningful to our neighborhood
when we can punch in our zip code to the DOC website and see 20 sex offenders. (It's really 21, but Peter "Spanky Pete" Rickmyer is temporarily incarcerated at Lino Lakes for trying to file a frivolous injunction against this blog. His court hearing scheduled today was POSTPONED. More on that later)

In the photo above, one of the citizens who attended the forum--and apparently she works right there at the church--went and printed the Level Three sex offender information for Harold Clayton Lacey, who (despite the fact this blog has been publicly bitching about it since December 20, 2010) is still listed, as of today, at the "Plymouth and Broadway area." She gave the paper to me, and I gave it to Hinchliff.

"WHERE DID YOU GET THIS?!" Hinchliff cried.

And the response was, um, off the DOC website. Dude.

So Hinchliff had to sit right there and eat crow because it turns out the citizens of North Minneapolis know his sex offenders better than he does. But why shouldn't we? They've been dumped in OUR neighborhood, not Jon Hinchliff's neighborhood.


Council Member Don Samuels prepares to speak to KARE-11.
KARE-11 talks to Russ Stricker from DOC. Jon Hinchliff from MPD is pictured in the middle, with the brown coat.
Denny Wagner, who has been formally appointed by the Jordan Area Community Council (JACC) as the "go to guy" on the topic of sex offender concentration, gives statistical data to KARE-11 which proves, mathematically, concentration of sex offenders is OFF THE SCALE in North Minneapolis. We have more than 900 percent of a normal distribution. Furthermore, it is strongly suspected a lot of the homeless sex offenders listed in downtown zip codes actually hang out in North Minneapolis and, furthermore, when these no-accounts come off supervision they may choose to live in this area, unsupervised.

We need legal help in this battle. Our neighborhood is under siege and DOC just keeps dumping more perverts on us. I wrote a little song about it, click here.


City Council Member Don Samuels makes a sign. The sign was later held up by Allie Wagner, the 15-year-old daughter of Deb and Dennis Wagner, an up-and-coming active citizen in North Minneapolis. During the meeting, Dennis said the Department of Corrections had "put a bulls eye" on the back of his daughter by dumping Roosevelt Whittler in the neighborhood, a man whose rape victims included 14- to 15-year-old girls. When Russ Stricker said, "I resent that." I took the opportunity to blurt out that I resent what DOC is doing to my neighborhood.
Eric Johnson, who blogs on the Irving Inquisition and publicized the "rapist village," came to the meeting looking like he should run it.
Dennis Wagner making his points. But Russ Stricker from DOC "resents" those points.
One corner of the room. There were about 20 citizens in attendance, and the pastor of the church spoke movingly about how a local landlord had put an offender near the church and the offender had assaulted one of the residents at the senior care facility, which ultimately led the landlord to realize he could "no longer morally justify what he was doing." How is it that in the poorest and statistically youngest neighborhood, that we are inundated by dangerous predatory perverts?
Michael "Kip" Browne making the "hook 'em horns" sign. The creepy looking woman is that Mpls Mirror lady from South Minneapolis who sticks her nose in the politics of North Minneapolis and sticks up for criminals like sex offender Peter "Spanky Pete" Rickmyer, criticizing pretty much anything the North Minneapolis "revitalizer blogs" say. On this night, more than one citizen deliberately stood in front of her camera, blocking her view even as she made verbal protests, a vivid demonstration of how little respect she garners in North Minneapolis.


The DOC did bring one piece of good news: Antwon Spells would not be moving into our neighborhood quite yet because the previous night Spells had been drinking alcohol and violated his probation conditions.

Currently, it appears the only way to get Level Three sex offenders out of North Minneapolis is for the offenders to violate their probation, as in the case of Antwon Spells and Peter "Spanky Pete" Rickmyer. So, until North Minneapolis gets some traction with public officials at the DOC, we should all do our best to keep tabs on these offenders and not hesitate to report anything that looks like some kind of violation, whether that involves hanging out where they shouldn't hang out, drinking alcohol, or various housing violations.

Hopefully, the word is also going out to the Level Three sex offenders: North Minneapolis is getting much too hot. There are, like, obsessed bloggers who will dig up information about you, post it online, and publicize the name of your landlord. They will watch for the smallest violations of your parole and you will end up going back to jail just like Peter "Spanky Pete" Rickmyer.

Don't do it. Don't move to North Minneapolis.

ADDENDUM: April 12, 2011: The original version of this story incorrectly attributed quotes and actions by Jon Hinchliff to Russ Stricker, and did not identify Hinchliff by name. That has been corrected.