April 1st, 2009
I received a “scam alert” from Cop Talk Live, indicating that there was a warning out to Olmsted County residents that a frozen meat truck was going door to door selling meat products. According to this alert, the meat may not be refrigerated properly, and according to a Goodhue County Sheriff Deputy looked like storage of the meat may have been in violation of health codes.
I can confirm this report! People in a truck like this came by home in Byron two days ago asking if I was interested in any meat. I declined, thinking it was a bizarre business plan anyway to sell meat door to door unsolicited. If anyone sees this truck, law enforcement would like you to call them right away at 328-6800 so they can follow up and make sure they are not doing anything illegal.
Here is the note from the Goodhue County Sheriff’s Office notifying Rochester Police about this incident.
“Tonight I had a call about North Star Meats selling door to door. I found them at Kwik Trip and spoke with them. They are selling door to door as I was told. They started out the relationship by lying to me. About three weeks ago I saw the van SB on 52 and it looked shady, I googled the business, the van is a full size van with an old North Star hockey type logo on it.
The net says they are shady, selling outdated product other underhanded stuff. When we were talking tonight I saw the “freezer” they had in the back of this crusty van. There was meat just laying out in the air in the back, not refrigerated. Also the inside of the freezer was naked house insulation. Has to be several pages of health code violations there.
They are a legit business, they have door hangers and the such. One of the guys had a pocket full of receipts so they appear to be selling things. Gross.
Just wanted to share, I told them that there would be trouble if I had to talk to any of them again.”
Sent to Rochester Police Department by the Goodhue County Sheriff’s Office
Posted in Crime Tips, Safety Tips | 3 Comments »
March 18th, 2009
A 911 emergency hang-up call prompted Rochester Police officers to check out a disturbance at 108 13th Ave. S.E. just before 9 a.m. on Monday March 16th. On the phone, the dispatch heard arguing, but no other information. As police arrived at the scene, there was no way to tell if it was just a minor dispute, or what else might be going on. Luckily, the Rochester Police officers used caution when approaching the house, because when they yelled in to see what was going on, they saw masked intruders inside.
With only two officers on the scene right away, they managed to get the victims out of the house, and retreated back outside to wait for some backup. One of the victims had been assaulted and was bleeding, most likely from being hit with a pistol.
After reinforcements had arrived, one of the intruders surrendered to police and indicated there were two more suspects inside with guns, but after an extended standoff, the house was found to be empty and they had apparently fled earlier.
In a surprising turn of events, police found 3 grams of cocaine and $4,000 dollars in the room of the 24 year old victim, which I would surmise would have been the intended target of the intruders. A Rochester Police Department officer made mention to a Post Bulletin reporter that most home invasions are not random, usually they are targeted at a place where there is known to be some valuable property.
I would like to commend the Rochester Police Department for their professionalism and for using due diligence to keep the victims, neighbors, and fellow officers as safe as possible while investigating this armed home invasion. Though the end result didn’t end in capturing all the suspects, the steps the police took ensured that everyone involved came out safe, and that is an important thing to recognize.
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February 24th, 2009
Can you easily translate the title of this blog post? Then this topic directly relates to you. If you have kids with cell phones, this directly relates to you! “Do You Text and Drive?” is the question, and if you do, you are not only breaking the law, but also putting your life in danger.
Last week, a young female driver in Olmsted County was texting on her cell phone while driving, drifted over the fog line of the road, overcorrected and the car hit a power pole. Several people were taken to the hospital for evaluation. This needs to be a message to all teen drivers, parents of teen drivers, and all drivers in general that cell phones have no place in a car when you’re driving.
Studies show texting while driving is even worse than if you were drunk or high while driving. Reaction time is slowed by 35% when texting. This is a recipe for disaster. There have been cases across the country of fatalities due to cell phone use while driving:
- Police in suburban Phoenix blamed a teen’s text-messaging habit for a head-on crash that killed two people. Ashley D. Miller, 18, wasn’t wearing a seat belt and was texting on her cell phone while driving in Peoria, Ariz., when her Ford pickup crossed a lane and smashed into a Chrysler PT Cruiser, killing 40-year-old driver Stacey A. Stubbs.
- The engineer of a Metrolink train that crashed in a head-on collision near Chatsworth, California, was chatting via text message with a teenager moments before the crash, according to the Orange County Register. Twenty five people were killed in this crash.
- In Canandaigua, N.Y., text messages were sent and received on a 17-year-old driver’s cell phone moments before the sport utility vehicle slammed head-on into a truck, killing her and four other recent high school graduates.
Drivers, please, put down the cell phones when driving. Parents, prohibit your young drivers to use cell phones, especially texting, while driving. As a parent, I’d even go so far as to look at your next monthly cell phone bill statement and see what times text messages are being sent to make sure it doesn’t coincide with times your young drivers are on the road. It may seem extreme, but you’ll wish you had if something tragic were to happen.
Minnesota Statute: https://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/bin/bldbill.php?bill=H3726.0.html&session=ls85
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February 18th, 2009
On the average day in Olmsted County, the Rochester Police Department and Olmsted Sheriff’s office see very few burglaries. There may be at most two or three reports on a given day. I noticed, however, that yesterday (February 17th) there was a rash of seven burglaries in the northwest part of Rochester, along with one additional burglary in Chatfield.
These seven burglaries all occurred between the hours of 5:00AM and 10:00AM, and happened in two neighborhoods close together in the northwest part of town (see picture). On the crime map, the black mask icon represents the burglary calls.
» Explore Crime Map
The Rochester Police Department Crime Prevention office indicates that one of the incidents was a gas can being stolen out of a garage at a residence, but no details are out yet on the other incidents. We hope to see some additional information later this morning. I will update this blog posting when more details are available, along with adding that information to the icons on the crime map.
Edit: The website is now updated with the incident details from the other burglary incidents, and it seems that many of them involve items being taken from cars within garages. This is a good reminder to keep your doors locked, and your garage door closed to prevent theft.
Posted in Crime Tips, Local Crime Analysis | No Comments »
February 16th, 2009
For all crime incidents, Rochester911.com shows you the date, time, address, case number, and classification of call that happened on the map. Now we have gone one step further and tied together some call summary information from the crime prevention website Cop Talk Live.
Every weekday, around 9AM, the crime prevention team sends out information about a select handful of the previous days calls for service. Thefts, burglaries, and robberies are the main types of incidents that will get some additional summary information to explain what happened. Not all calls for service will have a summary note available.
You can tell which calls will have a note by looking at the sidebar (image to left) and seeing a little note picture next to that call. You can hover your mouse over that note picture to get a quick summary in the mouseover, or you can click that call and see it show up on the map in full detail.
These call summary notes from the crime prevention team provide very useful information to give some context to the incident that occurred on the map. If you have additional questions about crime incidents in Rochester, you can contact Crime Prevention within the Rochester Police Department.
For questions regarding calls within the Olmsted Sheriff’s Department jurisdiction, you can contact the Sheriff’s Office Crime Prevention department.
Posted in Crime Tips, Website News | No Comments »
February 13th, 2009
Scams on the Internet and via U.S. Postal mail are thriving and they’re still finding victims every day, even here in Rochester, MN! I was shocked when I heard that even in our town, people are attempting to deposit cashier’s checks, sending money overseas back to Nigeria and elsewhere, and expecting a big payout of money to their account. I even heard of one person being told by police the check they have is a scam, and yet the next day they tried to cash it again! Personally, I don’t get it! Perhaps desperation for the money drives people to abandon common sense? The rule of thumb is, if it looks too good to be true, it is!
I am going to walk you through the basics of an Internet “advanced-fee scam”, and remember, there are a million variations of this floating out in cyber space. Then I’ll tell you who I really think is at fault (it may surprise you!)
Read the rest of this entry »
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February 9th, 2009
Crime is certainly in the news lately, but are crime incidents going up or down in Olmsted County so far this year? We can get some idea by looking at the number of calls for service for January last year, and compare that to January this year.
I chose nineteen different calls for service categories, and summed up how many happened in January 2008, and compared that number to January 2009. This includes the Rochester Police Department and the Olmsted County Sheriff’s Department (excluding duplicates when they collaborated on the same case). The graph below represents the percentage change in calls from 2008 to 2009. A number below zero is the percentage drop in calls, and a number above zero is the percentage increase in calls for that particular category.
Overall, the trend seems to be a downward shift in calls from last year. Motor vehicle thefts are down 47.5%. Burglaries, assaults, and thefts as well are all down a marginal amount.
What was quite surprising though was the large increase in calls regarding child abuse and child neglect. Looking at the numbers, there are a much smaller amount of calls for those two categories, so an increase of just a handful ends up to be a fairly large percentage. Still, I hope that statistic does not represent a trend in our community. Here are the specific call counts for each category, and their corresponding percentages.
| Comparing Jan ‘08 to Jan ‘09 - Calls for Service |
| Category |
Jan-08 |
Jan-09 |
Percent Difference |
| Motor Vehicle Theft |
40 |
21 |
-47.5% |
| Trespass |
60 |
41 |
-31.7% |
| Burglary |
52 |
39 |
-25.0% |
| Noise Violation |
115 |
90 |
-21.7% |
| Domestic Problem |
54 |
46 |
-14.8% |
| Forgery |
14 |
12 |
-14.3% |
| Criminal Damage to Property |
78 |
67 |
-14.1% |
| Assault |
48 |
42 |
-12.5% |
| Theft |
281 |
247 |
-12.1% |
| Disorderly Conduct |
105 |
95 |
-9.5% |
| Controlled Substances |
44 |
41 |
-6.8% |
| Dispute |
48 |
45 |
-6.3% |
| Robbery |
2 |
2 |
0.0% |
| Driving Under the Influence |
66 |
71 |
7.6% |
| Intoxicated Person |
79 |
85 |
7.6% |
| Suspicious Circumstances |
268 |
292 |
9.0% |
| Sexual Assault |
14 |
19 |
35.7% |
| Child Neglect |
7 |
15 |
114.3% |
| Child Abuse |
3 |
9 |
200.0% |
Note: Soon, anyone will be able to run some reports such as right here on Rochester911.com. The reporting page is currently being developed so that everyone will be able to create charts and tables of crime statistics, either on particular categories, or to gather statistics for their neighborhood.
Posted in Local Crime Analysis | 2 Comments »
February 2nd, 2009
Do you wonder what type of criminal convictions happen in Olmsted County? I’ve put together the statistics in a table, listing out every single conviction that an Olmsted County judge has sentenced for 2008. There is quite a variety of charges, from thefts to drugs to careless driving, and even some tampering with a witness charges.
What is really surprising though, at least to me, was the extremely high number of DUI convictions relative to all the others combined. The three statutes indicating DUI’s totaled 38% of the convictions in Olmsted County for 2008. The next highest? I had to add up all the different variations of drug convictions, and I got roughly 6%. Then domestic assaults are around 3%.
I knew drunken driving was a large problem, but wow. One in three cases going to the courthouse involve a DUI. Looking at the state of Minnesota’s convictions overall, this is about the norm. You can download an excel file with the entire list of convictions, total counts, and percentages below and analyze it for yourself.
Let me know if you discover anything else interesting from this list!
Download 2008 Olmsted County Conviction Statistics (Excel)
This information was compiled from publicity available data obtained from the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
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January 28th, 2009
“These won’t apply to me. These don’t happen in my neighborhood!”
Sadly, the four scenarios that will be discussed in this article happen everywhere in Olmsted County. In the rich neighborhoods, downtown, while making that quick run to Target, anywhere. These are common situations taken right from daily experiences from the Rochester Police Department and Olmsted County Sheriff’s Office.
#1 Leaving Vehicles Unlocked Overnight
Seems a bit obvious, but this happens … a lot! The common scenario is a thief will just pick a neighborhood, any neighborhood, and walk down the street … looking in car windows and trying door handles. If there is something plainly visible and of value in a car, they will even resort to breaking out windows to steal it.
Make sure you don’t leave valuable items in plain sight, such as:
- iPods
- GPS units
- Any amount of cash
- Purse or wallet
A law enforcement officer told us,
“… there are probably 30 to 40 cases of theft from vehicles each week on average. They don’t happen in just certain neighborhoods, thieves can and do target anywhere in the city. With some easy preventative measures, people could help avoid this unfortunate situation.”
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Crime Tips, Local Crime Analysis, Safety Tips | No Comments »
January 27th, 2009
The Rochester Fire Department has been spreading the word of the importance of making sure your fire hydrants are shoveled out and clear of snow and ice. Any delay getting to a hydrant in an emergency can make the difference between putting out a small fire, or the total loss of a home.
The Fire Department has a message on their News & Events Page. Please do find the time to make your sideways, driveways, and hydrants accessible and safe to walk on. Thank you!
Posted in Safety Tips | No Comments »
