DeVord Allen Arrested On What May Be The Most Unexciting Gun Charge Ever, Reportedly Lives At A Bashir Moghul Rental...

Stock photo, the property picture is NOT owned by Bashir Moghul,
blog post by John Hoff

Click here for the criminal complaint, yawn.

Devord NMN Allen, whose permanent address on the criminal complaint is already Lino Lakes prison, was stopped by police outside his mother's address upon information he was carrying a gun for "personal protection," which is not allowed because the man is a felon. 

Police picked him up and, well, that was about all there was to it...

Missing "Tube Sock" Charging Document Located For Rayjohn Henry Bryant...Charged At Same Time As Kevin Dupre Beasley

MNDOC mugshot, therefore public domain, blog post
by John Hoff

Click here for the criminal complaint.

I was excited to obtain a criminal complaint for Rayjohn Henry Bryant, but when I read the document I thought, wait-a-minute, this document is really familiar...

Well, as it turns out it's the same incident in which Kevin D. Beasley was charged, allegedly hiding a pistol in a tube sock. This makes perfect sense, of course. 

Tube socks come in pairs and when there are two people charged, so do criminal complaints...

JNS Blog Reader Contributes A Bit Of North Minneapolis Crime Family History With A Story About The Bobo Family...

Contributed photo, police (and possibly FBI) raid on 3851 Emerson 
Ave. N., blog post by John Hoff

Though former city councilman (and current Minneapolis School Board Member) Don Samuels was not elected Mayor, the campaign issue of half a dozen "North Minneapolis crime families" continues to resonate. The issue especially resonates with residents who live the reality, daily, of a small number of families being disproportionally involved in neighborhood crime.

A sidebar on my blog solicits stories and information about these crime families and recently a reader contributed that very type of information, as follows...

Scuttlebutt Bubbling, Gossip Circulating And Dissatisfaction Brewing With Ishmael Israel, Kind-Of, Sort-Of, But-Not-Really "Executive Director" Of NRRC...

Facebook photo used under First Amendment Fair Comment

and Criticism, blog post by John Hoff

Pictured on the right, Ishmael Israel of NRRC. (On the left, of course, Al Flowers) 

I had to swear a blood oath upon Minnesota's shield law to obtain this information from a neighborhood source, who has been very reliable, insightful and detailed in the past. But I'm still trying to make sense of the story, which is a tangle of neighborhood politics. In other words, the kind of thing only a neighborhood blog cares about for a neighborhood audience. 

If Mr. Ishmael Israel of NRRC would like to send me an email with his side of the story, I welcome his response and will publish it, within reason. 

But here's what I'm being told...

More Names And Present Day Connections (Or Coincidences?) To 1984 Champion Family Shoplifting Ring Story...Scrutinizing The Name "Nona Champion," Godmother To Slain Teen Nehemiah Steverson

Facebook photo used under First Amendment Fair Comment and Criticism,
also (JNS blog has long asserted) a public safety exception to copyright, blog
post by John Hoff

State v. Champion, a Minnesota Court of Appeals Case from the 1980s, has proven to be a fascinating "Rosetta Stone"filled with ancient writings about what some prominent local personalities were doing "back in the day." 

Or not. Maybe the names are all an eerie coincidence. 

JNS blog continues to assert, for the sake of my own high blog standards, that I don't have "on the record," diamond-hard smoking gun proof that "Bobby Joe Champion" from the 1987 court case about a Champion Family shoplifting ring is one and the same with the current state legislator of the same name, or that...

Internet Pot Gets All Stirred Up Over Story About 1984 Champion Family Shoplifting Ring, The Name "Willie Wesley" Comes Floating Up To New Prominence...

Image by John Hoff of material on internet, used under 
First Amendment Fair Comment and Criticism

In reference to my recent story about the "Champion Family" shoplifting ring from 1984, I want to emphasize I have NOT YET CONFIRMED the "Bobby Joe Champion" in the story is one and the same with State Legislator Bobby Joe Champion. 

People tell me things behind the scenes but without some ability to cite a a source--instead of leaning upon "keep me out of it, but here's the deal" remarks in an email--I can't nail down the information. 

For all I know, there's another "Bobby Joe Champion" and the guy from 1984 is a namesake, a coincidence, a DOPPELGANGER, even!!!!!!! (Yes, that last part of the sentence was delivered in a Snagglepuss cartoon voice, for those of you old enough to remember Snagglepuss) 

Anyway, DESPITE an inability to nail down information to something more than "here's one hell of a coincidence" level, the internet pot seems all stirred up over this blogger's story about a court case from the 1980s involving a "Champion Family" shoplifting ring. 

I am told the story was...

A Story From 1984 About Somebody Named "Bobby Joe Champion," And A Shoplifting Ring At Target In Ridgedale...

Stanley corporate logo, this image in public domain according to 
Wikipedia, blog post by John Hoff

A reader sent me an interesting story about somebody named "Bobby Joe Champion" (relationship to anybody else named "Champion" or "Bobby Joe Champion" unknown) which I am not publishing in its entirety...

US Marshals Arrest James Marione Butchee, Wanted In Connection With Fatal Heroin Overdose...A Better Late Than Never Blog Post!

Stock photo, blog post by John Hoff

Back in November of 2014, this blog reported on charges against James Marione Butcher; charges that involved a drug sale associated with fatal heroin overdose; all allegations not yet legally proven. 

It appears Butcher was not in custody at the time these serious charges were brought...

JNS Blog "Waved Off" On A Pointergate Story November 22, 2014, Didn't Want "Political Interference" With Gun Crime Prosecution...Oh, Well, I Should Have Just Written That Story!

Images from Instagram account of Montanatherealchief,
here used under First Amendment Fair Comment and Criticism


I guess the time has come to tell this sordid tale of how JNS blog didn't write a story, trying not to cause political interference with a criminal prosecution but, it appears, political interference happened anyway...

Kenneth Matthew Banks Claimed Cat He Stomped To Death Was Just Sleeping, Allegedly...

Public domain image, "Cat of Kazan," blog post by
John Hoff

Click here for the criminal complaint. 

Only a story about a murdered human being gets my attention faster than a report of animal mistreatment, but in this case the accused is apparently mentally ill...

Hennepin County Jail Roster, January 10, 2015 To January 21, 2015...And, Really, What's The Big Deal?

Photo, blog post by John Hoff

Consider, if you will, a "flip side" to the regular publication of the jail roster by this blogger. 

If everybody's jail record is public and accessible, then the stigma of a brief incarceration is lessened. In time, we all just come to accept that a whole lot of decent people have spent a night or two in jail after an argument with their boyfriend or a few too many drinks and heck, maybe they weren't even convicted. (Musical link to Keith Urban's "I Fell In Love In The Back Of A Cop Car) 

And how is this "lessening of stigma" achieved? Well, by all the incarceration records being published wholesale instead of being hidden through cracks and flaws in the high ideal of "public records." If the record is hard to obtain, is it really "public?" 

And so, in a spirit of moving society forward toward truth, democratic transparency and reality-based judgments through the easy accessibility of public information...

If A 6-Year-Old Child Falls From Gunfire On Newton Avenue North, And No Mass Media Make A Sound, Did The Shooting Actually Happen?

Image in public domain, blog post by John Hoff

On January 2, a regular reader who is a police scanner enthusiast sent me an email saying there had been a shooting on the 1800 block of Newton Avenue North. 

Of course, this reader didn't say "1800 block." He or she had the actual address...

Hennepin County Jail Roster, December 24, 2014 To January 9, 2015 And Please Allow Me To Add...FREEDOM OF SPEECH!!! JE SUIS CHARLIE!!!

Internet meme image from "open clip art" site, blog post
by John Hoff, consisting of mostly public data

The fact our society knows who has been jailed--that citizens are not jailed secretly by the government--is an aspect of democratic transparency. 

There is, however, a gap between transparency as it exists theoretically and legally, versus...

JNS Blog Publishes Rebuttal By Brian Goff To Recent Article About "Goff Holdings, LLC"

Neutral stock photo for visual interest, 
blog post by John Hoff

It has always been the policy of this blog, since the very beginning, that I am willing to give "equal time" to the people I write about...within reason, of course. So many of the people I write about express themselves in torrents of foul and badly spelled personal abuse, and naturally I won't publish THAT.  

But Brian Goff is not in that category. He responded in a reasonable way to an article I published about him, click here, and it's only right to publish his rebuttal in article form, not just as comments to the original article. 

So without further ado and editorializing, here are the words of Brian Goff. 

I have added paragraph breaks but not performed "English major" corrections of the text...