Last night, about 20 people attended a meeting hosted by the St Paul Police where they shared their response so far to the outcry after the May meeting about the 7 year old girl who was kidnapped and sexually assaulted in Cathedral Hill.
Pioneer Press was there and so was Fox9 News.
As mentioned in other Ramsey Hill Association news posts, the new Emergency Citizen Communications system has been implemented. I have personally signed up for it and think it is a great step forward. I encourage everyone to sign up for it as well - you don't need a smartphone; it will call your home phone with a notification as well as email and text messages. Downloading an app to your smartphone enables GPS-based notifications to where you are in addition to the addresses you enter. I entered my home, my typical business locations, and the location of each of my children's schools.
The Police also said they were already in the process of replacing their outdated Records Management System and have taken the conversations with us to guide their implementation, which is tentatively planned to go live before the end of 2017.
Lastly, they introduced Sue Abderholden, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness’ Minnesota chapter, who said she is planning to introduce new legislation at the State level to establish a committee to review our system for handling people who are dangerous and mentally ill or commit sex crimes.
Much work remains and it will take time and effort to change multi-agency challenges in what is a highly complex, multidimensional issue. But, the Police recited back what they heard, and it was consistent with what we said and better yet they have already taken some actions.
