NewsNight Minnesota; 3034; NewsNight Minnesota Episode from 10/31/1995; SD-Base

But. Tonight on NEWSNIGHT the U.S. Supreme Court takes up sentencing for crack and powder cocaine. Is the system unfair. We'll talk about it. We'll also hear from Harry Wu about his imprisonment in China. We'll revisit a garden in Minneapolis where one of the crops is community. And we'll take you on a safari through the wilds of suburbia. That's all tonight on NEWSNIGHT. Tonight's broadcast of NEWSNIGHT Minnesota was presented in part by Norwest going to the nth degree to serve our community. Good evening and thanks for joining us. I think you'll find it worth your while. We're going to start out with a quick overview of the day's top stories and for that let's go to Dave McCullough up in the news room he's sitting in for Ken Stone tonight. Dave thanks a lot Kathy we're going to start off tonight with a surprisingly quick verdict in the murder case of Monterey Willis monetary excuse me and a county jury deliberated only a few hours before finding Willis guilty of first degree murder in the shooting death of Minneapolis Police Officer Jerry Hoff. That'll probably go down as one of the

most notorious murder cases in Minneapolis history. Officer Huff was gunned down at a south Minneapolis restaurant in September of 1900. Willis is the fourth and final defendant to stand trial in that case. And he maintained all along that his guilt came only by association with the other defendants and that he wasn't even in the pizza shack restaurant at the time of the shooting. And Willis is going to be sentenced next Wednesday. Over on the other side of the river one of the more contentious issues facing voters next week is a proposal that would force any company which does business with the city of St. Paul to pay a quote livable wage. Now Mayor Norm Coleman has been leading the charge against that proposal he says that it's going to drive businesses and jobs out of the city. Well today a company called Midwest Training Services stepped in. They train disabled people like Roger as you see here and help them with job placement. They also get some city financing and the company says the livable wage ordinance would eliminate jobs for their clients. Supporters dispute that we would lose at least

I would say at least 75 percent of our jobs in the community almost instantly. The ordinance specifically says that the only jobs that are affected by this are is when the money from the city was given for the purposes of economic development or job growth. So training programs for the development is developmentally disabled or would not be covered under this ordinance that is ridiculous if anyone is asserting that they would be. Now you're going to want to tune into NEWSNIGHT again next Monday because that's the day before the vote we're planning to set up a more detailed discussion on this subject. What do you have em today we learned that come 1907. Go for women will be able to knock each other's teeth out right alongside the men. Today women's athletic director Chris Volz announced that the U is going to start up a varsity women's hockey team. Well the USA has women's hockey as a club sport but the addition of the varsity level should create a place for many Minnesota high school girls who've already played varsity hockey for about two years or so.

We will hope that the projections that say that in the year 2000 there will be more than 10000 girls on skates in the state of Minnesota. And we'll look forward to them looking very good in Moon in gold. Now adding women's hockey is also going to change the ratio of women to men in the U of M sports departments. That ratio currently stands at about 65 men for every 35 women adding hockey should change that to about 55 to 45 and that is in order to stay in compliance with Title Nine Gender Equity rules. Also at the event today human rights advocate Harry Wu told a crowd to think twice before buying goods made in China. Now you may recall this summer caused an international uproar when he was arrested in China for spying on labor camps called Laogai in Chinese. We says he's lucky to be free today but that doesn't mean that he's going to stop spreading the word about slave labor in China.

Perhaps today more than a million people suffer inside these camps more than a thousand cam which I have identified those people are forced to labor. Those people are forced to brainwash. If they do not they will if they do not they will stuff. If they do not produce the quote There will be feet less food and often beaten. If the quality of their work is not up to what the costs are manned they will be punished and that sentence will be extended. You named it and it just may be manufactured in a locker can stupe pipe shoes a few flower toys and twos machines of all kinds chemicals closing even soup and perfume perfume men are rows among that cotton t graves and other goods are growing. We don't shop in economic reforms. Exports just last

week we found a lot of projects in France and Germany just last week. We issue a report special report we find now the World Bank loan was relate with the Chinese slave labor. There's not a country I have visited which just not simple falsely products from China today into one before the Christmas. We stand in front of the toy stores. We want people don't buy into products don't buy as a Christmas gift is to give the products made by. Slave labor make by blood and tears. I don't think a family have to enjoy that. I think this is the message. We can't do it now because the product is made by man and woman. We want to know who are the harmony RV and why these

people are locked up and forced to labor and how you force them. This is a human rights issue. And Cathy most of us of course learned about Harry last summer when he snuck into China and that's when he got himself arrested. But Dave this isn't the first time he's run afoul of Chinese authorities though is it. No actually he's been doing this for quite a few years he was arrested back in 1957 for criticizing the Chinese government and at that time he actually spent 20 years in a Chinese labor camp. All right Dave thank you very much. Now we're going to kick things off down here with a national story that sure to have some local bounce. Now the U.S. Supreme Court is going to hear arguments in a case which boils down to one question Does the federal government unfairly target blacks for prosecution in drug offenses. The court could end up forcing the feds to explain why figures show that almost all people who are prosecuted for federal crack offenses are black. Now we're going to talk about that in just a minute but first we want to show you an excerpt from a series of reports we did about crack at sister

drug powder cocaine. Here's NEWSNIGHT Laurie Stern. I think the cell site almost every night in Minneapolis police are executing search warrants like this one. They say they pick their targets based on neighborhood complaints and evidence gathered with the help of informants. What they find this night is typical evidence of crack use small amounts of the drug itself. The typical crack house there's very little food. It's all left but police can link the evidence to only one person. He will face possession charges in juvenile court. The woman who lives here will have to deal with child protection and eviction proceedings. The neighborhoods are really kind of our watchdog to where they're busiest Krakauer says and we quote of the busiest ones we can find to make it more productive. Police told us that a week after this incident they made another arrest at the same

address after they found more drugs and a gun. People in any terminal or. Police say they have to arrest a suspect over and over before his record is bad enough for him to do time. And they have to visit the same address repeatedly to shut a crack house down. It's basically became our number one priority. Especially on a street level with a lot of complaints from the citizens and the neighborhood watch groups and just the effect that it has crime. You know people you know getting obtaining money to buy the crack. So in terms of the police department resources how are they distributed in terms of powder cocaine versus crack. Is it you know 80 percent 50 percent. I would say. Now there are number of issues that come into play here to try and sort it all out. We've invited Al Houston. He's a clinical director of a drug counseling program called turning point. He's also a former crack addict. Also joining us is Pat Diamond who's deputy

prosecutor for had a fine county gentleman. Welcome Pat first question to you. We've heard that on the federal level at least at least when it comes to crack cocaine prosecutions the vast majority who are prosecuted are African-American. Does that this does that mirror what's happening locally to the best of your knowledge as far as I know yes the. Crack prosecutions are overwhelmingly African-American in fact the drug prosecutions that we see are probably overwhelmingly or at least majority African-American. Why what's going on is it just targeting is what's something that you know I think that that's a more complicated question than it first appears. Certainly if police go out and look for drugs in almost any segment of our society they could find them prevalent all over the place in our society so there's no question that the rest have a function of where you go look.

But beyond that I think that some of the lead in the footage was it was instructive there was tremendous pressure on police departments and rightly so to do something about the just deterioration of the neighborhoods and the kind of destruction of a community that a crack house can cause i want to ask al about this because you have experience with this. What is it about crack cocaine vs. powder cocaine that is such a problem. Well I think it's. It's where the law enforcement concentrate on their wrists I believe that crack cocaine has not caused any more problems then and pot of cocaine if you if you if you look at the statistics there's more power to cocaine in this country and these crack cocaine but they thought these have a tendency to focus on crack cocaine in the African-American community. It's just some more. Said the

victim victimized a certain communities in this country and we've been we've been victimized by being specially prosecuted. We've been victimized by different walls. I've heard though Al that when it comes to studies that more white people use powder cocaine more African-Americans use crack cocaine. Is that right as far as you know. Well I don't believe so I believe that just as many white people use crack cocaine is blacks it's just where the concentration of the arrests are located. PELLEY I think you have to be careful with some of this because for example if the Minneapolis Police Department decided to turn its back African-American neighborhoods with very serious crack problems I think those neighborhoods would be rightly outraged at the police at the same time. I don't deny that the police are in African-American neighborhoods making crack arrests and putting resources there. So when I said it's not as simple as all

it appears on the surface that's what I meant. Let me ask you this if we could if there was a huge crack problem in white society as there is in African-American society would we be will we be targeting would we be having this much of a focus. I would hope that we would be trying to solve the crack problem wherever it exists. Unfortunately the problem of our our cities our problems that we seem to at least in the last 10 15 years have lost the will to address overall crack isn't an isolated case in there is it. What's worse Al a crack addict or a powder cocaine addict when it comes to issues of violence when it comes to the drug itself. Well both for the same. Because crack is developed from part of cocaine. If you took a person that shot. And eventually shoot powdered cocaine into their eye they would have the same effect as

you would smoke it. You would get the same behavior the psychosis would be the same. If I took part of cocaine and poured on the table and put it in and the spoon cooked it and shot it in my brain you would get the same reaction as a crack a person and using crack in a pipe. It's the same intensity same behavior let me suggest so that that analysis misses the mark by a little bit. I think what we really need to address are is the harm that either of these substances are causing in our communities it's destroying neighborhoods destroying commune would you agree Pat should there be should the penalties be the same for both. I think the penalties when the harms are the same the penalties should be the same but I think that we need to look at at at harms a lot more we know that drugs and guns travel together we need to look at separating the those two elements and making sure that when somebody combines those two into a very explosive mixture that were were prosecuting us and getting additional time in one of

thats one of the things that the federal government does wrong when really quick question here the mandatory guidelines for crack versus powder cocaine sentencing. Should those guidelines tie the hands of judges and prosecutors. I think in the federal system there's been a large outcry from the judges in particular that they feel that the sentencing guidelines on the mandatory minimum sentences that are extremely long have been tying their hands and have prevented them from doing that justice having the discretion to do justice in each individual case I think that would be Al quickly do you think this this should be changed. I think that the laws should be equal. The same amount of power and the same amount of credit should be prosecuted as the same. All right I appreciate you both joining us we ran out of time. Thank you very much. Every once in a while here on NEWSNIGHT we pick up on a story that we think is worth a followup or two or in some cases even three. Well here's one of those stories. It's really a very simple

story about a little garden shared by neighbors in Minneapolis is central neighborhood. We visited it a few times over the summer and now that the harvest is wrapping up we thought it might be a good chance to check in again. Here's Katie CA's Dan Bergen. A few years ago it was just another abandoned lot. Since then the Columbus gardens have become a place where residents have come together to weed out problems and grow community. It's far and most of the vegetables are gone from the stocks and stems. But up the street the shelves are stocked in the remodeled corner store run by ADNAN ABU Hammad and his father. Their prices a little cheaper for. One reason they invested in the old corner store was because of support from residents who are involved in the community garden. We had a lot of support from them that really the best fliers for us you know a lot of people we came out of. You know you know they're very excited about the store and they like the changes and clean it up. This corner especially.

This revamped store is a neighborhood success but there are several smaller successes that grow from the garden like the garden mentor program. You are the expert. Here never had to do it. His garden mentors amik of fields that inhabit Ferguson showed their pluck and their lives with the family across the alley. Elisa and her sister Camille enjoyed the harvest but that's not all they like about gardening. I like also Well plenty when they froze for years going because they look pretty. I like to take them home. It's. Like believing that. I like. You to. Like a Lady and the tomatoes because that's all you do. They also liked working with Onyx. Yes. Ever since we did it.

Yeah. Alicia and Camille just took to the garden and you know I thought I might be out there probably the water but it seemed like every time the gate was open they were over there with their low mark milk cartons getting ready to water or coming knocking on my door saying Shall we water the gardener will you give us the key so we can go water the garden. And I think it was just something solid for them to do and something they were really proud of flowers around the house but couldn't make it through a bit too far. The girl's mother values the garden as an alternative activity is some place for the go every day. And they're not thinking about other places. It's a trouble. You know they get excited. See I knew Kerry was something new growing but she hopes they always have this kind of positive outlook. I pray on that every night you know to take a stance in a positive positive thing because the so scary now you know with the

teenagers and the kids killing each other you know with them having something else to do positive and that they enjoy. Makes me feel good yeah. Hello. Right right right. Let's pull up a little. Now what I do know that I gotta get it right now the girls are passing on gardening skills to their younger siblings. Well Alicia works really hard in her family as does Camille I think any oldest of six kids immediately has. Responsibilities for younger kids. And whenever I've done activities with all six of the kids together it's real clear to me the leadership skills that Alicia has been. Teaching her brother is just kind of guarding. Her from what a week it is. Let me go. Over. TO So Elizabeth you know her little brother Joe thinks it's fun to watch. I've been an income tax does to me when you go to the what I would tear.

Down our spine during the summer. The girls got an opportunity to test their skills on a big Wisconsin farm. When I showed up at the farm with these three girls I said you know I think they can wait and they can harvest and they can be responsible and they can work and. And they've practiced those skills and you know they did work really hard but then they also had a lot of fun and I really like to that. What fun and work are opposite things like garden tools shows long. Carrots for a while. After a year at the Columbus gardens its symbolism becomes clear. In spring the plots are cleaned and cared for and so is the neighborhood. Throughout the summer parents nurture the growth of their garden and their kids and well plants take root in the garden. New home owners put down roots in the neighborhood at a time when divisions between people grow wider because relationship with these girls grow stronger. They appreciate her as a mentor and a friend.

She really can't see that kids have the power to do it. So let them do what they choose to do. And when I think about. Alicia and Camille like you with their work and they're always smiling and and they're out there always proud of their work. They always ask good questions they're always inquisitive and I just have such a strong sense of them as as wonderful together proud people. And I wish they had lots and lots of elements in their life where they could experience that. And I know they have other places and I hope that you know this work that they do in the garden can just spread into other parts of their life as well. That report from Katie sees Dan Bergen. Well while the community garden serves as a means of escaping some of the problems of city living many folks choose to avoid those problems by living elsewhere. We like to bring you a sort of a travelogue slash nature show in tonight's commentary. Jeff straight

takes us on a little so far E. through suburbia. Oh. Our trek to the edge of suburbia begins like all classic safaris at a famous watering hole. This one is at Mall of America in Bloomington and how fitting the hall has turned one of Minnesota's grabber suburbs into the state's flashiest attraction by helping Minnesotans for it get there in the summer to our destinations. Eden Prairie Fastrack suburban jungle of cul de sacs hungrily eating its way into Lake Wobegon. Now we're driving along I-5 toward 94 on what was once the southern edge of the metro area. There used to be a pasture over there that so many people like living there the pastor they needed to put roads and sewers through it. Same thing's happening these days and Woodbury Coon Rapids and even rarer.

The promise of fresh air and low crime rates rural settings and lots of white people is a powerful draw. Over the past 45 years two thirds of Minnesota's population growth has occurred in the outer suburbs. Now here we are Eden Prairie in the distance beautiful Anderson lake's. Fran and last Blacklock. He's the nature photographer worked hard to get Hennepin County in Eden Prairie to protect the chain of lakes as a preserve. But look what we have now. Progress another freeway going in commuters will now be able to shave an entire minutes off their drive back to the store prior life in bucolic Scott County. That's why it's progress when I can hunt ducks along Highway 5 anymore. When big homes go into this old woods and when a giant bust be sharers Bismarck was purgatory free. So they give the subdivisions names like Summerfield. There is no field in Somerfield and onshore is farm road and the crops are cul de sacs.

A Minute time the mayor once joked about administrating the cul de sac capital of the world. But even with five hundred twenty three of the dead ends may soon surpass it. Natives on the edge believe them to be safe from speeding cars and crime. But it's actually safer in your head up and then frankly or at least the police and medics anyone can find you quickly. I would want to have a heart condition and live around here. I'm a Minnesota Gothic old Eden Prairie and this is the kind of setting real estate agents drive you buy on the way to the house they want you to buy you but buyer beware. With each new subdivision the quality of life on this suburban friends drops a notch or two. When the boosters make a pitch for more growth in the expanded tax base goodbye country livin Haloti sprawl.

Beautiful this part of Eden Prairie lies beyond a line on a map drawn up by the Metropolitan Council. The so-called use ally marks very edge of simpler b.s.. The Musa line is supposed to control unplanned sprawl in our region. But over the last eight years it's been pushed out into like Wobegone country. More than 80 times and even though there is enough land within this Musa line for another 20 years worth of new houses malls and office parks. Eden Prairie booster types want their segment of it washed out five years ahead of schedule. Isn't that there for that Eden Prairie was named by a traveling New Yorker back in 1853 and that her city X the nation's very first commuter suburb the borough of Queens. This is what Queens looks like today. Now is there a lesson here for Eden Prairie. Well folks living in Washington Scott and Carver counties figure this out before it's too late.

Well I hope so. Say it was a nice traveling with you. Keep your back to the wind and your eye on that line when not acting as a tour guide Jeff Street works as a freelance writer. That's going to do it for us tonight. Thank you for tuning in we'll see you again tomorrow night. But on NEWSNIGHT Minnesota is made possible by the contributors to the power of two campaigns program with major grants from the Blanton Foundation and the next night foundation. Tonight's broadcast of NEWSNIGHT Minnesota is presented in part by no West going to be inserted three to serve our community.