Report: Rising Crime in Minneapolis Spreads to Suburbs

Crime rates in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul suburban area have risen at an alarming rate as violent crime continues to surge in the Twin Cities following the death of George Floyd in 2020, according to a report.

The Star Tribune has compiled data from recent years on crime in the suburban cities of the Saint Paul-Minneapolis metro areas, finding the communities documented 51 homicides last year, an increase of more than 100 percent compared to the pre-pandemic days of 2019, which saw just 22. Most took place north of the two cities.

Jeff Hargarten, one of two journalists who worked on the report, told KARE 11 that the north metro suburbs are the main ones that have seen their crime rates rise since 2020.

“You have the unrest, you have the pandemic, you have the deaths of George Floyd, the next year you have the death of Daunte Wright,” said Hargarten.

One type of crime that has seen a spike is carjackings, which tripled in 2021 compared to pre-pandemic days to 28, based on 22 documentations by suburban police departments, the Star Tribune noted.

Sharon McWhite, 74, told the publication about her experience of three vehicles belonging to family members being stolen out of her driveway. While crime rates are notably on the uptick in the north, this case occurred in Edina, southwest of Minneapolis. McWhite also had her purse stolen at a grocery store parking lot west of the city by a gang of teenagers.

In Golden Valley, also west of Minneapolis, police are investigating five recent carjackings, KARE 11 reported. At least one of the vehicles was located and a suspect arrested. “Police say the suspects in nearly every case were wearing dark ski masks and armed with semi-automatic handguns,” the outlet noted.

While the number of recorded carjackings is rising in the suburbs, it pales in comparison to the more than 600 carjackings documented in Minneapolis in 2021. The carjacking rates were accompanied by all-time record homicide numbers in the Twin Cities.

“Suburbs still pale in comparison to Minneapolis and St. Paul, which combined for a record-shattering 135 homicides last year,” the Star Tribune reported.

While crime surges in the Twin Cities metro area, a Reuters report from last year, cited by Breitbart News, showed traffic stops were down some 85 percent from May 2020, when Floyd died, into May 2021.

Minneapolis Police Commander Scott Gerlicher told Reuters that there “isn’t a huge appetite for aggressive police work out there,” adding that no one “in the job or working on the job can blame those officers for being less aggressive.”

Breitbart News also reported in September 2021 that “[i]n the past year, 25 percent of Minneapolis police officers either retired or quit. The mass exodus has created a major staffing problem for the police department.”

You can follow Ethan Letkeman on Twitter at @EthanLetkeman.