ST PAUL, Minn. — A $13.6 million public safety grant will be put to good use in the Capital City. That’s the word from Mayor Melvin Carter and his leadership team.
“We are endeavoring to build the most coordinated, comprehensive, and data-driven approach to public safety that our city has ever endeavored,” Mayor Carter told reporters at a news conference outside the St. Paul Police Department headquarters.
“We know that emergency response is a vital aspect of our public safety portfolio, and we know just how important it is to send the right people to the right scene.”
The money flowing to St. Paul across the next three years is part of a pot of $300 million in public safety grants state lawmakers approved last May. It’s one-time money, so it won’t be automatically renewed without action of the legislature. But Gov. Tim Walz, who co-hosted the press event, said how cities across the state use those dollars will help him make the case for more.
“A big chunk of this was one-time. It was wisely used by a lot of communities to catch back up on the stuff they needed, some of the stuff they weren’t going to get normally, but I think it makes the point,” Gov. Walz explained.
“This was an historic investment in public safety. And the approach we took is that local officials know best and putting the resources in the hands of folks who can tackle the individual issues in each community is what we should be doing.”
In St. Paul, the grant money will be used in ways that reflect the city’s wholistic approach to public safety, which stresses working behind the scenes with community partners on prevention as well as intervention and enforcement.
“We’re working to make those key preventions and interventions in the future so that the younger folks that are coming up and watching this behavior aren't deciding to do it themselves,” St. Paul Police Chief Axel Henry remarked.
Chief Henry said he considers arrests of suspects after the fact important but compares it to winning a bronze medal. He sees the violence that’s stopped before it can happen is a better prize to win.
“We are down 40 percent in shots fired calls compared to last year. That’s 774 less shots fired calls year to date compared to last year. That’s 774 gold medals.”
The influx of state money will also help put more officers on the street by increasing the number of police academy sessions the St. Paul PD can conduct. But at least one third of the money will go to the city’s Office of Neighborhood Safety, which works with community-based partnerships behind the scenes to reduce violence.
Director Brooke Blakey said her department will be able to hire more community outreach workers that can bolster intervention efforts on the street.
“The Office of Neighborhood Safety has listened to what the community has asked, and we are using the investments given to us by the state to really work in partnership with our Saint Paul Police Department, with our Saint Paul Public Schools, our faith community, our community-based organizations that are out there doing that ground-level, grassroots-level work.”
The St. Paul Fire Department will be able to send more firefighters to paramedic training and purchase more state-of-the-art gear for fire scenes.
“Our EMS will be bolstered up and because of that we will have more available firefighters to respond to fires,” St. Paul Fire Chief Butch Inks told reporters.
“We're going to be able to purchase the new self-contained breathing apparatus that will help us and allow us to enter into burning buildings, to not only put the fire out and save our residents but also protect our firefighters from toxic chemicals and smoke.”
While gun violence is trending down in Saint Paul, Mayor Carter cited the recent killing of 8th grader Monica Holley as vivid reminder the city must try even harder to stem the tide of bullets.
“We lost an eighth grader to gun violence in St. Paul. That same night we had three other teenage girls wounded by gun fire. That's unacceptable. We won't stand by and watch that happen!” Carter remarked.
“But I got a chance that night to be hopeful as I saw the way our police officers comforted the family who had lost their daughter.”
Carter said he also drew hope by seeing the team from the Office of Neighborhood Safety sit with parents of the other wounded teens while they were in surgery for their gunshot wounds.