Category: News

Best wishes for a Happy Father’s Day from the Minneapolis Police Museum!

We are looking for retired officers to be part of a new oral history video podcast series we are producing for the museum.

The format is very simple. We will pair two officers together and pose the following questions to them for an interesting and vibrant discussion:

• What motivated you to become a police officer?
• Who was the most influential person in your career in the Minneapolis Police Department? What lessons did that person teach you?
• What kinds of friendships and camaraderie did you form on the job and with whom? Whom did you trust and depend on and why?
• What was your favorite part of the job and why?
• Of all of your contributions to the Minneapolis Police Department, which make you most proud and why?
• What would you want to share with future generations about your experiences, and your feelings about your profession?

We are hopeful that you will participate and invite you to email us at info@mplspolicemuseum.org to learn more.

Production on this series begins next Wednesday, June 24, so please do not delay.

Thank you!

Photograph above of the late Homicide/Robbery Lieutenant Bill Noble when he worked a Personal Injury Accident Car for many years in the early to late 1960s. Notice the partially covered traffic patch on his left sleeve.

We are beginning planning for a series of video podcasts on Minneapolis neighborhoods called “Our Neighborhoods: Then and Now”.

In the first podcast of this series, we hope to bring together active and retired Minneapolis Police Officers and residents from different generations for a discussion of their life and work in the Northeast Minneapolis neighborhoods then and now.

We are looking for podcast participants and are reaching out to you to invite you to join us!

Here are some of the discussion topics we would like to feature in the podcast:

• Where in Northeast Minneapolis did/do you live and/or work? If you worked/work in Northeast Minneapolis, describe your work. What was/is the best part? Worst?

• What kinds of friendships and camaraderie did/do you form at work or in your neighborhood, and with whom? Whom did/do you trust and depend on?

• Who was the most influential person in your work/life in Northeast Minneapolis? What lessons did that person teach you?

• What was/is your favorite place to be in Northeast Minneapolis and why?

• When you had/have the opportunity to eat a meal or snack away from home, where and what did/do you eat?

• Did/do you shop in Northeast Minneapolis? Where and for what items?

• If you are a person of faith, where did/do you attend services? Why did/do you choose worship with that particular congregation or community?

• Describe your favorite memories of various holidays in Northeast Minneapolis. How did/do your family celebrate holidays? Did/do lots of relatives and friends get together? What traditions did/do you have year after year? What food was/is served?

• Of all of your contributions to Northeast Minneapolis, which make you most proud?

• What do you think the turning points in the history of Northeast Minneapolis have been and why?

• Was there ever a time when you had doubts that Northeast Minneapolis could survive as a neighborhood? With whom did you share your thoughts and what did the people you know say?

• If you could hold on forever to one memory from your time in Northeast Minneapolis, which one would it be?

• What would you want to share with future generations about your experiences, and your feelings about Northeast Minneapolis?

We hope that you will consider joining us for this podcast. For more information, please reach out to us at info@mplspolicemuseum.org

Thank you!

Cathy Buda is the daughter of the late Lieutenant Clinton A. Benson who retired from the Minneapolis Police Department in 1979.

Lieutenant Benson had saved MPD manuals, books, and training materials from the early 1960s. He was careful to specify that these should not be thrown away but should instead be donated somewhere.

We are grateful to Cathy for thinking of the Minneapolis Police Museum and for her generous donation of these materials which are so important to understanding the evolution of the department and the city.

As you may recall, production of our podcasts was halted with the onset of COVID-19.

We just received the good news that we will be able to resume production of our podcasts at the MCN Channel 6 studios beginning the week of May 25 in conditions which are in conformance with the Governor and his Commissioners’ guidance on public health safety precautions against COVID-19.

As we plan the work ahead, we would love hear your feedback on some ideas for podcasts we are developing. We are interested in learning if you think that these topics will be compelling, and also if they will be helpful in encouraging an understanding of the role of policing in the development of our city and in the development of our city on the role of policing.

Our thought is to create a “Our Neighborhoods: Then and Now” podcast series. The idea would be to capture the memories of officers and community members who remember the neighborhoods as they were in the 1960s and 1970s and include officers and community members who are working and living in these neighborhoods today. This would be a way that we could approach the idea of neighborhood transitions and also bring different generations together in discussion. Amongst others, we would include in this series such neighborhoods as:

• Northeast Minneapolis
• Cedar Riverside
• North Minneapolis
• Whittier
• Phillips
• Loring Park
• Downtown
• Warehouse District/North Loop
• Dinkytown
• Lake Street
• Nokomis
• Powderhorn

Another idea is to do single topic podcasts. Some suggestions for this series are:

• Northside Riots of July 19-21, 1967
• Vietnam War Protests at the University of Minnesota
• The Mayoral Administration of Charles Stenvig
• The Tony Bouza Years
• Women in the Minneapolis Police Department: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
• Racial Diversity in the Minneapolis Police Department: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
• Protecting National Political Candidates: From the 1960s to Today
• Changes in Technology and the Impact to Communications on the Ground
• Gun Proliferation and the Impact on Policing Our Neighborhoods
• Changes in Crime Scene Investigations Since the 1960s
• Are We Warriors or Are We Guardians? – Minneapolis Policing Mindsets through the Decades
• My Time as a Rookie – What They Don’t Teach in the Academy
• The Story of the Model Cities Precinct

Yet another idea is to focus on crimes and criminals that have figured prominently in the history of the City. These could include:

• The Ozark Flats Murder
• Arnold Axilrod and the 1955 Murder of Elizabeth Moonan
• The Murder of Stanislaus Bilanski
• The Murder of Walter Liggett
• Augie’s Theater Lounge & Bar and Minneapolis Organized Crime
• Kid Cann (1900-1981)
• Deuce Casper (1936-2003)
• Perry “The Scholar” Millik (1944 – 2003)
• The Alexander Brothers

Are there additional topics that you would like us to pursue? Would you like to be a part of this effort either by participating in a particular podcast or by helping with research for a podcast?

We would love to hear from you and invite you to comment directly below or by writing us at: info@mplspolicemuseum.org

The Minneapolis Police Museum received a wonderful gift today from Cathy Roehl Peterson!

It is a beautiful cloth souvenir from the Annual Minneapolis Police Picnic of July 10, 1895.

We have only ever seen one of these before, and it was not in very good shape and it had no year on it, so this piece is a real treasure for the museum.

Cathy’s father, Arthur John Roehl, was a Minneapolis Police Officer for 36 years.

We are grateful to Cathy for her generous donation.

We are grateful to Michael Moore for his generous financial donation to the Minneapolis Police Museum today!

Thank you Michael for helping us to encourage an understanding of the role of policing in the development of our city and to share our stories with the intention of fostering empathy, interest and understanding.

We appreciate your support!

We are grateful to Peter Borman for his generous financial donation to the Minneapolis Police Museum today!

Thank you Peter for helping us to collect and preserve our materials, to share our rich heritage, to deepen our connections, and to ensure our future.

We appreciate your support!

We are grateful to Stephen Traxler for his generous financial donation to the Minneapolis Police Museum today!

Thank you Stephen for helping us in our mission to tell the story of policing within a context that honors our officers and relates the remarkable stories of the neighborhoods they have served.

Your support means the world to us, Stephen!