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Sheriff-Elect Stanek Focuses on
Guns, Gangs, Kids, & Drugs
In his second appearance in recent months at SD41 dinners, newly elected Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek outlined his philosophy and priorities, as he steps into that important position.
But before speaking about the future in the sheriff’s office, Stanek took time to recap his thoughts about the 2006 election and the role of Senate District 41. “I wish we could put SD41 in a bottle and ship it all over the State,” he said. In his opinion, no other Senate District works as hard.
With regard to his own election, he feels the secrets were name recognition and talking directly to the voters. Stanek had 3100 lawn signs out all over the county. Minneapolis is the largest community in Hennepin County and there are few organized groups that a candidate can reach. Rich spent many hours talking one on one to voters and to small groups over coffee. He related one story of a Somali woman who voted for him in her first election after becoming a citizen. Her loyalty stems from personal contact during the campaign.
Moving on to talk of his new position, Stanek views his move as succession, not transition. That is to say that Sheriff McGowan did a great job as sheriff and Stanek sees himself continuing many of the policies and programs started by McGowan. “It’s a short move for me. About 10 feet vertically. My new office is directly below my current office with the Minneapolis Police Dept.”
By his own words, Rich ran on experience, leadership, and vision. That’s what he intends to bring to the office. His priorities are guns, gangs, kids, and drugs. He noted that violent crime was up 45% early this year and that most of it is committed by kids under 18 years of age. There have been 58 murders so far this year in Minneapolis, 42 of which were on the north side. Back in 1995, murders reached 99 for the year, forcing the community to take action. Today we face a similar problem after years of improvement and, now, relapse. Asking the assembled audience what drug was largely behind this crime; he surprised the group by saying its marijuana, not crystal meth as many thought..
Asked what the real role of the sheriff’s office is in Hennepin County compared to the city police organizations, Stanek outlined three: Enforcement, Intervention, and Prevention. In reality, the police have primary responsibility in cities where they exist. His role is coordinating resources between local, county, state, and federal. He manages an $80 million budget with 850 employees. Running the county jail is one of his most important and challenging jobs. With 850 beds, they jailed 55,000 people in the last year. On many busy weekends, as many as 1100 need to be accommodated. A real challenge with so few beds.
After the meeting, when the echoes of Stanek’s words had faded, security cameras picked up ghostly images of the type of criminals he spoke about. They appeared to be sneaking about the Calvary Lutheran Church premises armed with cans of whipped cream bent on an SD41 version of paintball. Rumor has it that the scofflaws resembled our own chairs, Linda Presthus and Jerry Paar. Maybe the sheriff-elect should be contacted. It helps to have Republican friends in high places.
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