Numbers game: St. Paul police sign up more convention cops–but may still have fewer than they claimed last week
Thursday, July 24, 2008 at 11:27 am
- 6 Comments
MnIndy has received from the St. Paul Police Department an updated list of the Minnesota city and county police agencies that SPPD lists as having signed joint-powers agreements (JPAs) to send officers to help patrol the Republican convention from September 1-4.
St. Paul has apparently been having trouble coming up with enough licensed police officers from around the state to work the convention. (If you haven’t read our prior coverage already, the links are beneath the chart, below.)
Bottom line: It seems unlikely they’ve added more bodies than they lost from last Friday’s "done deal" list with the revelation that a) the Minnesota Gang Strike Force and the Minnesota Department had not agreed to send 190 officers as advertised, and in fact don’t even have that many licensed cops; and b) some of the other "finalized" JPAs from last Friday weren’t and still aren’t finalized.
Last Friday’s list of completed joint-powers agreements included three departments that were no longer listed on the latest release: Bloomington (75 officers), Hennepin County (300), and Plymouth (17). Hennepin County’s participation has been approved by the county board but not yet signed off, so they’re now effectively in, even if they weren’t when SPPD initially said so. Bloomington and Plymouth’s agreements are apparently not yet concluded.
Where does this leave us in terms of numbers? Last Friday St. Paul police claimed to have 1,819 officers locked up through already concluded joint-powers agreements. But owing to the foregoing errors or misrepresentations in that list, that number needs revising. A back-of-the-envelope, ballpark calculation indicates that a total of around 280 cops have fallen off the list of concluded deals since last Friday (150 from the state Department of Corrections, 40 from the Minnesota Gang Strike Force, 75 from Bloomington, 17 from Plymouth).
It’s harder to estimate how many cops St. Paul has added for convention duty. Two county sheriff’s agencies (Dakota and Olmsted) have reportedly finalized agreements to send approximately 40 officers. Otherwise there are no numbers to accompany most of the new departments listed on Wednesday’s release. But if you make fairly liberal assumptions about the numbers involved–say, 20 from the medium-sized city of Rochester, 20 from Wright County, and an average of 5 apiece from the 13 smaller towns and suburbs added to the list–it would come to a total of 145 additional officers.
So it would appear — and I have to stress the inexactness of this, owing to both SPPD’s misinformation and the fact that negotiations are still in progress and the numbers are changing every day — that yesterday’s release covers 1,650 to 1,700 officers, or 100+ fewer than the city claimed nearly a week ago.
There’s one fairly large asterisk in the equation that could drive that number lower or higher. Tom Walsh says the "MN State" notation below covers all cops enlisted from state agencies. They were broken out separately in the first release, where they comprised a total of 640 officers from the Minnesota State Patrol (270), Department of Natural Resources (150), Department of Corrections (150), Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (30), and Minnesota Gang Strike Force (40). Walsh refuses to say how many licensed officers are coming from state agencies at this point, but he swears the number will be larger than originally advertised–even though, as we pointed out above, 190 officers from the gang strike force and the DOC have since come off the list.
I’ve annotated St. Paul PD’s list with three marks:
* = Had already signed a JPA as of last Friday, when SPPD released its first list.
+ = Was listed as pending on last Friday’s release.
[x] = The numbers I’ve inserted are interpolated from last Friday’s release. Today’s release didn’t contain any numbers. These numbers should be taken with a grain of salt, as SPPD in some cases has been encouraging agencies that have already signed on to send more if possible.
| Agency | JPA Status |
| * Anoka County Sheriff [49] | Complete |
| * Apple Valley, City of [10] | Complete |
| * Bayport, City of [3] | Complete |
| * Blaine, City of [6]
|
Complete |
| Champlin, City of
|
Complete |
| * Crystal, City of [10] | Complete |
| +Dakota County [15] | Complete |
| * Edina, City of [25] | Complete |
| Farmington, City of
|
Complete |
| Gaylord, City of
|
Complete |
| Hastings, City of | Complete |
| * Maple Grove, City of [22] | Complete |
| * Maplewood, City of [38]
|
Complete |
| McGregor, City of | Complete |
| Medina, City of
|
Complete |
| Mendota Heights, City of | Complete |
| * Minnetonka, City of [8] | Complete |
| * Minnetrista, City of [4] | Complete |
| * MN State
|
Complete |
| * Mounds View, City of [13]
|
Complete |
| * New Brighton, City of [16] | Complete |
| North Mankato, City
|
Complete |
| +Olmsted County [25]
|
Complete |
| Ramsey [city] PD | Complete |
| * Richfield, City of [21] | Complete |
| Rochester, City of | Complete |
| Roseville, City of | Complete |
| Shakopee, City of | Complete |
| * Sherburne County [19]
|
Complete |
| * Saint Anthony, City of [5]
|
Complete |
| South Saint Paul, City of | Complete |
| * Stillwater, City of [10] | Complete |
| Wayzata, City of | Complete |
| * West Saint Paul, City of [3] | Complete |
| * White Bear Lake, City of [13] | Complete |
| Wright County | Complete |
| Complete = JPA is signed |
See MnIndy’s previous coverage of this story:
Convention cops: More discrepancies emerge in St. Paul’s RNC security force tally (July 22)
Convention cops: Head of gang strike force denies RNC participation (July 21)
Convention cops: SPPD releases list of departments sending officers to RNC (July 18)
Convention cops: SPPD official asks for more police volunteers, offers to forgo JPAs (July 18)
Convention cops: St. Paul struggling to recruit enough officers for RNC security (July 17)
6 Comments
Comment posted July 31, 2008 @ 1:54 pm
As St. Paul struggles to confirm the minimum number of cops they need to secure all of their venues, Denver P.D. sails full speed ahead. The contrast in the way these two agencies have prepared for their respective conventions is breath taking.
In contradistinction to St. Paul P.D., Denver P.D. has actually been planning with and training with all of the assisting agencies. St. Paul has become notorious among Minnesota law enforcement in their complete lack of information sharing, plannning, or training with all of the area agencies that they ABSOLUTELY need to carry out a successful RNC from a security standpoint.
St. Paul failed to capitalize on the initial excitement in the Minnesota law enforcement community by including other agencies in planning and promised training opportunities. Instead St. Paul’s brass decided to treat all of the other area law enforcement agencies like the red headed step-child. As a result, many chiefs of police have backed off of their original plans to deny vacations during the two weeks surrounding the RNC and mandate all off-duty personnel work at the RNC. Many are now making it optional to work the RNC for their respective agencies. Cops have seen how no training or equipment has come from St. Paul and really have no interest in being thrown into situations in which they are neither adequately trained, nor adequately equipped.
Another area of contrast is the St. Paul City council’s treatment of this event. Whereas Denver has actually passed ordinances banning the possession of tools that will be used in civil disobedience such as locking mechanisms, breaking tools such as bats or crowbars, containers of urine/feces (used to throw at cops)- St. Paul has said they don’t need these kind of ordinances. They will just arrest people after they have tied up traffic for hours, broken countless windows out of area businesses, or thrown feces and urine on cops.
St. Paul Police Department is having trouble getting officers signed up for the RNC because of their own handling of the situation and their arrogance that a force of 600+ really doesn’t need the help from the suburbs.
Hang on to your hats St. Paul. This could be rocky. How many years will the citizens of Ramsey County be paying for the riots?
Comment posted July 24, 2008 @ 1:18 pm
For what it’s worth, the Plymouth City Council gave the go ahead to sign the JPA at its June 24 meeting.
Comment posted July 24, 2008 @ 11:20 am
Thanks for staying on this, you’re really scooping everyone. It’s a great story.
I do think they’ll pull it out at the last minute, but they are clearly winging this. I heard as much at a meeting with the younger Bostrom regarding the final preparations – things will change at the last minute, so they have to be flexible. This is a little more than just … flexible.
I can see Fletcher is nervous, and I don’t blame him. He’s a legendary control freak, but frankly this sounds like a logistical job designed for a control freak, so what’s to complain about? The real story could be when Fletcher loses his temper in frustration, which I would guess he’s about to do.
Thanks again!
Comment posted July 24, 2008 @ 6:20 am
Thanks for staying on this, you're really scooping everyone. It's a great story.
I do think they'll pull it out at the last minute, but they are clearly winging this. I heard as much at a meeting with the younger Bostrom regarding the final preparations – things will change at the last minute, so they have to be flexible. This is a little more than just … flexible.
I can see Fletcher is nervous, and I don't blame him. He's a legendary control freak, but frankly this sounds like a logistical job designed for a control freak, so what's to complain about? The real story could be when Fletcher loses his temper in frustration, which I would guess he's about to do.
Thanks again!
Comment posted July 24, 2008 @ 8:18 am
For what it's worth, the Plymouth City Council gave the go ahead to sign the JPA at its June 24 meeting.
Comment posted July 31, 2008 @ 8:54 am
As St. Paul struggles to confirm the minimum number of cops they need to secure all of their venues, Denver P.D. sails full speed ahead. The contrast in the way these two agencies have prepared for their respective conventions is breath taking.
In contradistinction to St. Paul P.D., Denver P.D. has actually been planning with and training with all of the assisting agencies. St. Paul has become notorious among Minnesota law enforcement in their complete lack of information sharing, plannning, or training with all of the area agencies that they ABSOLUTELY need to carry out a successful RNC from a security standpoint.
St. Paul failed to capitalize on the initial excitement in the Minnesota law enforcement community by including other agencies in planning and promised training opportunities. Instead St. Paul's brass decided to treat all of the other area law enforcement agencies like the red headed step-child. As a result, many chiefs of police have backed off of their original plans to deny vacations during the two weeks surrounding the RNC and mandate all off-duty personnel work at the RNC. Many are now making it optional to work the RNC for their respective agencies. Cops have seen how no training or equipment has come from St. Paul and really have no interest in being thrown into situations in which they are neither adequately trained, nor adequately equipped.
Another area of contrast is the St. Paul City council's treatment of this event. Whereas Denver has actually passed ordinances banning the possession of tools that will be used in civil disobedience such as locking mechanisms, breaking tools such as bats or crowbars, containers of urine/feces (used to throw at cops)- St. Paul has said they don't need these kind of ordinances. They will just arrest people after they have tied up traffic for hours, broken countless windows out of area businesses, or thrown feces and urine on cops.
St. Paul Police Department is having trouble getting officers signed up for the RNC because of their own handling of the situation and their arrogance that a force of 600+ really doesn't need the help from the suburbs.
Hang on to your hats St. Paul. This could be rocky. How many years will the citizens of Ramsey County be paying for the riots?
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