Latest Posts

In 1975, The Wedge – the newspaper of the Lowry Hill East Neighborhood Association (LHENA) – published a regular column called “Meet Our Police.”

Hermann Weinlick was the columnist. In the July issue he met with Officer Dave Nelson and Officer Earl Stroshane at the Bryant Avenue Station.

Here are some of the highlights from Mr. Weinlick’s article:

“My main impression from an hour talking with Earl Stroshane and Dave Nelson at the Bryant Avenue Station is that police are people working with people. They appreciate every bit of support they get. They’d like to know better the people they work for.

Dave and Earl both like their work—more than a great many others can say. Earl has been here at Bryant for over six years, Dave for two. Police work is not new to Dave; five members of his family, including his father, have been on the force. Both like the freedom. In the words of Dave, “You’re your own man.” “You can see the light of day. You’re not in an office all day.”

Dave says, ”Any change for the better will come because people care about the neighborhood. We need to cut down the ‘New Yorker attitude.’ You know, you see your neighbor getting ripped off and look the other way.”

The specifics of doing anything are hard, but the keys are old and simple: Know your neighbor. Care about your neighbor.

Dave and Earl have numerous simple suggestions to improve life in the Wedge. They seem obvious, but perhaps their source will give them more weight:

• An ounce of prevention…..The leading crime here is burglary. Any place can be broken into, but many crimes can be prevented simply by making them harder.
• Take a walk. Become familiar with your neighborhood—faces, homes, cars, names. Know your neighbors—or, at the least, come to recognize them.
• Keep your eyes open. Call the police if you see something suspicious.
• Know where your children are.
• Clean up. Have a cleanup party with your neighbors.
• Get to know the police. They’re people. Get together with your neighbors and call the station to set up a meeting just to get acquainted and to answer questions. Shoot the breeze with the police on the street. Earl says “I believe good working relations between the police and the neighborhood are essential”. “

From The Wedge of July of 1975 courtesy of Hennepin County Library

In the 1970s and 1980s, The Northeaster, the community newspaper of Northeast Minneapolis, featured stories of the Minneapolis Police Officers of the Second Precinct in a column by Karen Anderson called, “Meet Your Northeast Police”.

Here are the stories of Officers Nick Josul and Lieutenant Malcolm Laramore as written by Ms. Anderson:

Officer Nick Josul

“Officer Nick Josul, a lifetime Northeast resident, has been on the Minneapolis Police force for almost 18 years. All of those years have been spent serving as a patrolman out of the Eastside Precinct.

Most of the time, you’ll find Nick walking along Central Avenue. At other times, Nick is the one who takes your call at the front desk at the station. Still other times, Nick works out of a patrol car.

Nick says he became a police officer because he enjoys working with people. He says it’s interesting work and “I work with a nice bunch of guys.” Nick must be a pretty nice guy himself as he made this compliment of his fellow officers while a bunch of them were giving him the business during my brief interview with him.

Besides his regular police work, Nick also serves as a guard at the Fidelity State Bank on Central one day a week.

Nick is active at St. Mary’s Russian Orthodox Church and is a member of the Arcana Masonic Lodge, St. Mary’s Veterans’ Association, and the Goldbricks Club (How many of you know what that is?). Nick loves to fish and is an avid mushroom hunter.

Thanks for your dedication to our community, Nick.”

Lieutenant Malcolm Laramore

“Lieutenant Malcolm Laramore has a big smile on his face these days. He’s retiring January 15th, after 20 years with the Minneapolis Police Department. Not that he hasn’t enjoyed his work. He has—because “No two days are the same.” When asked why he became a police officer, he replied that he likes people and police work provided the opportunity to make life a little better for his fellowman.

Lieutenant Laramore started his career at the Second Precinct on January 1, 1960 as a patrolman. He was a Patrolman for 8 years. He was then promoted to Sergeant and transferred to the Third Precinct where he served for 4 1/2 years. In November of 1972, he was promoted to Lieutenant and spent a few years at the Bryant and Minnehaha Precincts. In August 1977 he was transferred back to the Second Precinct where he currently serves as the Watch Commander.

Lieutenant Laramore has been a member of the Masonic Lodge for 35 years and plays eight instruments. He also enjoys hunting, fishing, target shooting, and electronics. Lieutenant Laramore plans to retire to the Ozarks where he has purchased a home. He says he plans to travel and “do the things I never had time to do while I was working.”

We wish him well and extend our wishes for his many years of fine service to this community”.

Article on Officer Jossul from The Northeaster of December 1979 Courtesy of Hennepin County Library
Article on Lieutenant Laramore from The Northeaster of January 1980 Courtesy of Hennepin County Library

If you are middle-aged or younger you might believe that dialing 9-1-1 in a police, fire, or medical emergency has always been a thing.

But that is not the case.

Before November 31, 1982, if you had an emergency, you would open up your telephone book to find the number for the police, fire or ambulance and then call the appropriate seven-digit number for your particular emergency.

With the advent of 9-1-1, you could call one easy-to-remember number and then the dispatcher would send the appropriate agencies to your rescue.

The move to 9-1-1, as with most changes, had its smooth and rough spots.

The initial rough spot was the large number of curiosity calls to 9-1-1. This happened because people wanted to verify whether 9-1-1 could actually see their address when they called and because they had various questions about 9-1-1 operations. Large volumes of hang-up calls were also reported in the first weeks of 9-1-1. When asked why they called and hung-up, people responded that they just wanted to make sure that the phone number worked.

The initial education campaign for 9-1-1 indexed heavily on its use for emergencies only. It took a while for people to settle on a practical definition of “emergency” and additional communication was needed to help people understand that they did not need to wait until a crime had actually occurred to call 9-1-1 but that they should call if they suspected that a crime was developing; for example, when an unfamiliar person was peering into the windows of their vacationing neighbor’s house or when someone was walking down the street looking into car windows.

In the first 18 months of its existence, people were especially hesitant to use 9-1-1 for medical emergencies and still generally first called their doctors to discuss their condition before calling 9-1-1. From a Minneapolis StarTribune article of June 28, 1984 we learn the following:

In the summer of 1983, Minneapolis experienced a rash of robberies of elderly couples and rapes of elderly women. It was suspected that one man was committing these crimes. In September of 1983, a 9-1-1 call from an elderly couple who had just been robbed was the key to apprehending the suspect. Third Precinct Captain Dan Graff said that the timing of the police in capturing the suspect within minutes of his latest robber was “extraordinary”. “It’s a credit to the 9-1-1 emergency line, to the officers and to the surveillance effort going on at the time”.

Top advertisement from the Minneapolis StarTribune of December 7, 1982

Quotation of Captain Graff from the Minneapolis Star Tribune of September 10, 1983

Today we honor the memory of the 2,977 people killed in the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 at the World Trade Center site, near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon.

We offer our condolences to their families and to all who loved them.

We are also thinking of the courage, selflessness, and perseverance of the men and women of the rescue and recovery effort.

We are grateful to them for their service.

Svenskarnas Dag (literally translated as Swedish People’s Day and also known as Swedish Heritage Day) is an annual celebration that takes place at Minnehaha Park on the 4th Sunday of June.

Svenskarnas Dag includes many activities such as: a morning church service; the raising of the Midsommar Pole; various singing and dancing performances by local and visiting Scandinavian groups; visiting amongst families and friends; eating of traditional Swedish foods; and the crowning of the Midsommar Queen.

On June 28, 1964, President Johnson and First Lady Claudia “Ladybird” Johnson paid a visit to Svenskarnas Dag. Usually, crowds of 40,000 to 50,000 attended the event but that year more than 100,000 persons were drawn to Minnehaha Park with the hopes of catching a glimpse of the couple.

Civic leaders were very proud of Minnehaha Falls as a nationally-recognized natural wonder of the city and they were concerned that the untimely reduction of the roaring waters to a trickle (due to lack of rain) would make for a poor experience when the President and the First Lady visited the setting. So, they spent $600 ($5,015 in 2020 dollars) to add water to the creek and bring the waterfall to full force.

With the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy less than one year earlier, great precautions were taken to ensure President Johnson’s safety. It was not confirmed until the very last minute that before arriving at Svenskarnas Dag he and the First Lady would be attending morning services at Mount Olivet Lutheran Church.

The Minneapolis Police Department did its part to keep President Johnson safe. The StarTribune reported that officers were everywhere at the Sheraton-Ritz where he and Ladybird were staying. Officers were fanned out for two blocks around the hotel in every direction and 26 officers were counted on 4th Street alone between Marquette and 3rd Avenues.

In the interests of safety, President Johnson travelled to Minnehaha Park in a closed car and then once in the park he transferred to an open car so that Svenskarnas Dag attendees could better see him.

In the photograph above, President Johnson is pictured sitting at the very back of the car on a ledge surrounded by Secret Service agents.

In the left foreground of the photograph, you see two Minneapolis Police Officers dressed in tan shirts and brown trousers. This tan and brown combination was the summer uniform of the Minneapolis Police Department for a time in the 1960s.

Photograph courtesy of Hennepin County Library
Report from Minneapolis StarTribune of June 28, 1964

On March 23, 1998 the new Cable Channel 34 show “MPD Live” had its premiere.

The show was created to provide Minneapolitans with crime prevention strategies and safety tips and to give them the opportunity to get to know Minneapolis Police Officers.

In the beginning, the hosts of “MPD Live” were Jim Long, a Crime Prevention Specialist Supervisor, and Matt McClean, an Officer in the Fifth Precinct.

The show was broadcast live every other Tuesday evening at 6:00 pm from a first floor room in City Hall. There were special guests from the Minneapolis Police Department, city government, and the community each week along with calls from viewers. Hosts and guests answered viewers’ questions about safety and police work.

Minneapolis Police Chief Robert Olson was the show’s inaugural guest. He came back a year later, in 1999, to help celebrate the first anniversary of the show.

On the first anniversary show, Chief Olson spoke about the decrease in crime since the previous year and the success of the CODEFOR program which was a system created to analyze crime data and send officers to crime hotspots.

Of “MPD Live”, Chief Olson said, “What a venue to get citizens constantly reeducated about the little things that could be the difference between being the victim of a crime or not.”

The show was produced by a combined team of paid staff and volunteers and cost between $200 and $300 per episode to broadcast.

In its first year, “MPD Live” covered housing issues, community crime prevention strategies, and information about the operations of the 911 system. There was a visit from a K9 and his Officer. A man serving time in the Hennepin County Workhouse for burglary made a special appearance on the show to discuss how he committed his crimes and how people could avoid becoming victims of theft.

Top photograph and story from the Minneapolis StarTribune of March 24, 1999

In September of 1922, more than 75 wives, mothers, sisters, daughters and women friends of Minneapolis Police Officers came together to form the Minneapolis Police Ladies’ Auxiliary.

As their very first officers, the members elected:

• President – Mrs Arthur Martin of 1921 Laurel Avenue
• Vice President – Mrs Adam Smith of 2637 35th Avenue
• Secretary – Miss Ellen Winell of 3724 17th Avenue South
• Treasurer – Mrs Lawrence Wicklund of 2657 James Avenue North

The Minneapolis Police Ladies’ Auxiliary was a both a philanthropic and a social organization.

Its monthly business meetings were held sometimes in the homes of members and often over lunch in restaurants. The particular favorite restaurants of the Ladies’ Auxiliary were the Hasty Tasty, Freddie’s Cafe and the Hotel Dyckman.

The group also held benefit card parties. Here is a notice for one from 1937 to be held at the Bryant Avenue Station for the benefit of the Michael Dowling School for Handicapped Children. The most popular card games played at these fund-raising events were Bridge and 500.

Another frequent philanthropic activity, especially during the Great Depression, were the all-day sewing sessions held at the homes of members to benefit women and children of Minneapolis in need.

“All-You-Can-Eat” lunches and suppers drew in hungry diners in search of a good meal and eager for the opportunity to help others.

Dances were always well-attended and the proceeds from them were used to further the many good works of the Minneapolis Police Ladies’ Auxiliary.

Photograph at top from the Minneapolis StarTribune of January 9, 1938

On January 8, 1918, thieves broke into the Raleigh Waist Company located at 833 Nicollet Avenue.

During a midnight robbery, the thieves stole 541 ladies’ shirtwaists which were valued between $7,000 and $8,000 in total. They loaded up several trunks with the shirtwaists and spirited them away by automobile.

Fortunately, Minneapolis Police were able to solve the crime and return the shirtwaists, in excellent condition, to the owners of the Raleigh Waist Company.

In the advertisement above, the owners of the Raleigh Waist Company thank the Minneapolis Police for recovering the shirtwaists and state their wish to share their good fortune with the ladies of Minneapolis by inviting them to a sale.

Sources: Minneapolis StarTribune of January 8, 1918 and January 20, 1918

Beginning in 1947, the School Patrol Picnic was held annually for more than 20 years. The event recognized School Patrol members for their fine work in keeping their fellow classmates safe as they travelled to and from school.

On May 19, 1966, the picnic took place at Minnehaha Park. Attending were 5,000 School Patrol members who were entertained with games, races, prizes and entertainment. Awards were also presented to the members.

Throughout the years, the School Patrol program has been known for developing outstanding citizenship qualities in its members.  Many School Patrol members have gone on to become police officers, firefighters, medical professionals, teachers, and librarians.  

Source: Minneapolis StarTribune of May 12, 1966

Photograph of Officer Leo Gilligan with a School Patrol member and a schoolchild in the early 1960s from the museum archives