University of Minnesota to send campus cops to patrol Minneapolis streets

University of Minnesota president Joan Gabel has announced in an email to students and faculty that university police will be deployed to patrol nearby neighborhoods that are not part of campus and will assist with calls that the Minneapolis police are too short-staffed to respond to. 

Citing “shared concern and frustration” over recent crime and safety incidents, Gabel wrote that, effective immediately, university police would be assigned to patrol the off-campus neighborhoods of Dinkytown and Marcy-Holmes. 

Three University of Minnesota students were injured in a Dinkytown shooting last week, as noted in Gabel’s letter.

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According to the university police chief Matthew Clark, the Minneapolis Police Department has been unable to respond to all the calls it receives. Local station KSTP quoted Clark as saying, “If there is an emergency call and there is not a car available, whether it’s Minneapolis police or any other agency, we will step off campus to make sure those calls are answered as quick [sic] as possible.”

Minneapolis has seen a massive spike in violent crime this year, including an 89 percent year-over-year increase in homicides and a 32 percent increase in robberies over the same time, per KARE 11.

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CBS 4 reports that, following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020, president Gabel cut all ties between the university and the Minneapolis Police Department. In September of that year, students protested for a partial defunding of the university’s own police force. 

 Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @AngelaLMorabito