Minnesota communities—like cities across America—are suffering from unprecedented levels of crime. The problem is especially bad in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and surrounding cities. In Minneapolis, the city’s ShotSpotter sound-based gunfire detection system detected over 20,000 rounds fired during the first nine months of this year. During the same period, Minneapolis saw 503 gunshot victims. That’s up 26 percent from 2020, and it’s double the four-year average. There have been at least 73 homicides in Minneapolis this year. In 2020—a year that saw more murders than any year since 1995—there had been 61 homicides at this point in the year. Carjackings also continue to rise. There have been 355 carjacking in the city year-to-date, an increase of 35 percent over last year.
Terribly, in the last nine months, three children—ages 6, 9, and 12—have been fatally shot in Minneapolis.
The level of violence in the Twin Cities is shocking and appalling. Residents are living in fear and those with the means to do so are moving out.
But even as violent criminals terrorize Minneapolis and cities across America, the radical left—prominently including Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison—seem to deny there is a problem with crime at all.
Instead, President Biden, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, and their leftist allies have apparently decided that moms and dads who voice concerns about critical race theory and mask mandates to their local school boards are the real criminals.
Garland’s recent memo to the FBI essentially threatens to prosecute parents who exercise their First Amendment right to protest woke school administrators and school boards. The Biden administration, together with leftist Democrats like Keith Ellison, are creating a rift in the rule of law itself. Those who ally themselves with the wokery of the administration and its leftist supporters receive due process and a nearly indisputable presumption of righteous innocence, while those who assert divergent, disfavored political views do not.
Antifa members and leftist rioters who destroyed large swaths of Minneapolis largely got a pass from Keith Ellison and the Biden administration. Moms and dads who refuse to stay silent as schools teach toxic critical race theory to their kids are presumed guilty of thoughtcrime and tagged for prosecution.
If the government can single out those on one side of a political debate and target them for prosecution for expressing their opinions on matters of public concern, then the First Amendment means nothing, and all our freedoms are in dire jeopardy.
Meanwhile, the true terrorists—the criminals causing mayhem and murdering unprecedented numbers of Americans on the streets of our cities every day—receive little attention and all too often go entirely unprosecuted.
Here in Minnesota, a pervasive climate of lawlessness has taken hold. It is the predictable result of leaders—including Keith Ellison, the top legal and law-enforcement official in the state—who undermine the morale of police at every opportunity and refuse to prosecute lawbreakers.
Ellison has taken no action whatsoever to stem the rising tide of violent crime in Minnesota. On the contrary, he recently declared his support for dismantling the Minneapolis Police Department and replacing it with a new Department of Public Safety that might utilize a reduced number of police officers, but only “if necessary.” Defunding and further demoralizing the police will only lead to even more crime.
The 20,000 gunshots detected in Minneapolis in the first nine months of this year demonstrate just how backwards and dangerous the priorities of Ellison and his leftist allies in Minnesota, Washington D.C., and cities across the country truly are. While the radical left seeks to use the law as a tool to push their political agenda, trampling Americans’ constitutional rights in the process, our most vulnerable communities are crying out for help. They need more police, not less. They need the protection provided by a strong rule of law. And they need a government that defends their constitutional rights—including their right to oppose the poison of critical race theory.
We must not allow the law to become a political tool, and we must ensure that no one is ever targeted for prosecution because they express one opinion and not another. And we must restore law and order. I am running for Minnesota Attorney General to do exactly those things. I will enforce the law, support law enforcement, and protect every Minnesotan’s constitutional rights.
Doug Wardlow is a Constitutional lawyer and former Minnesota State Representative. He is running for Minnesota Attorney General.