Some Interesting Facts From The Fourth Precinct

Photo By John Hoff

There was a meeting at the Fourth Precinct HQ a few days ago, and I went there with Peter Teachout or--as he now insists on calling himself--"Mr. Incredible."

No, don't even ask. Anyway, Sgt. James Novak threw out some pretty interesting numbers about handgun seizures...

It turns out that, as of the most recent yearly figures available, the Fourth Precinct has taken 310 handguns off the street. THE REST OF THE CITY COMBINED has taken 313 handguns off the street. You read that right. Fourth precinct is only trailing by 3 handguns.

Novak jokingly summed up the numbers this way: 5th Precinct just isn't working hard enough.

He also said, "You don't hear it on the news, but there are a lot of people being shot every week."

I'm confident of THAT. On Saturday I made a call about some crackhead loitering with an open bottle, and a cop from 3rd Precinct showed up. I spoke to the cop, who told me a lot of officers from 4th Precinct were tied up with a shooting call, so he was taking some of the unanswered calls. After that conversation, the next day I Googled "North Minneapolis" (like I do about three times a day) and expected to read about some shooting.

Nothing. So somebody got shot, but no media covered it. Arg. WELL SOMEBODY SEND ME AN EMAIL WHEN THESE THINGS HAPPEN AND--!!!!!!

And I'll cover it. By golly. Include photos if possible. I'll credit you. I'll keep you anonymous. Whatever you like.

The photo above shows one of the fine police officers from the 4th Precinct responding to a call on the 3000 block of Lyndale Ave. a week or so ago. I'm not sure what happened. Some car was sitting there, all banged up, without another damaged vehicle in sight. I heard a rumor the car had been hit by a FIRE TRUCK, but I wasn't able to confirm it and the officers looked quite busy, so I didn't want to get in the middle of things.