Reducing violence during the summer months

MINNEAPOLIS — As summer approaches, the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office expects an increase in crime as more people go outside.

“There are a lot more people coming into the city, people from out of town,” said Maj. Rick Palaia of the HCSO. “There’s a lot more activity.”

“We generally find that things get a lot busier during the summer,” he added.

Palaia says they are looking at certain areas including guns, fentanyl and gang activity. He says guns are something they've struggled with.

“We've seen over the last few years, especially a few years, younger and younger kids getting involved in gang or drug activity,” Palaia said.

The department's Violent Offender Task Force is already seeing this increase. Palaia says so far this year they have made 178 arrests, taken 74 guns off the street, seized 10 pounds and 30,000 fentanyl pills, as well as thousands of additional grams of meth and cocaine.

“Our violent offender task force focuses on guns, they focus on those issues when there are people out there,” he said.

This task force has seen so much recently that Sheriff Dawanna Witt released a statement discussing their work recently, including multiple stolen cars and car chases throughout their day.

“We're lucky they're willing to do this, and they'll probably see more guns as the summer heats up,” Palaia said.

Palaia says they also have a car theft unit that works closely with the Violent Offender Task Force to stop carjackings and other car thefts.

“They put their lives on the line every day to try to take guns off the street, take drugs off the street and provide a safer public,” Palaia said.

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