#pointergate

[TheUrbanGopher]

If you are on Twitter, you have surely seen the #Pointergate uprising, spawning from a picture of MPLS Mayor Hodges and and GOTV canvasser Navell Gordon pointing at each other. The points were interpreted by Hubbard-owned KSTP as gang signs and they used a retired cop for a sensationalist quote. It has huge racial undertones, and has received unfortunate national press because of it. In the opinion of myself and many others, its a ridiculous controversy that KSTP doesn't seem to recognize (they doubled down on their story, quoting the same cop on a follow-up, among other things).

Not really related to development or transportation at all, but I am curious what UrbanMSP (streets.mn forum?) posters think of it.

[NickP]

I pretty much agree with everything you said. I thought this was very bad reporting and poor form on KSTPs part.

[Anondson]

I believe them when they say that LEOs from the city brought it to their attention. I think the focus on KSTP is generally a sideshow and won't change things in the grand scheme and greater attention should be focused on the city having police with this mentality out on the street. The police have a greater affect on day to day quality of life than anything the last-place local news station flubs.

There should be petitions asking the police union and the police chief to disavow the gangsigns interpretation. This aspect does relate to urban quality of life though because policing behavior and exaggerated enforcement affects us all.

[TheUrbanGopher]

Great points. The police union should be embarrassed at themselves if they were the ones who brought the picture to KSTPs attention. Something smells really fishy about the whole situation... if showing the "gang symbol" was going to be such a public threat and cause flare-ups in the street gang world, then why wouldn't the police contact city officials or other police before showing it to the metro area on the news? It makes no sense to me. I want to exclaim conspiracy... but I'm thinking it was just piss poor journalism on KSTPs part without them thinking about the consequences.

I actually hope sponsors start pulling out of the station until they issue an apology or retraction.

[talindsay]

KSTP has long over-sensationalized any city-related reporting, to a point where I can't imagine anybody really considers them a legitimate source of "news". This is right up their alley. The thing about it is, as moronic and embarrassing to any ethical standard of journalism as this story may be, all the attention simply rewards KSTP with more attention, viewership, and ad-clicks. Better to just ignore them as the ridiculous sideshow they are. Move along, nothing to see there.

[David Greene]

So there's a lot of background here that's being mostly missed by the media. MPR has a good summary:

http://www.mprnews.org/story/2014/11/07 ... ointergate

Bob Collins' NewsCut is indispensible reading on this:

http://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/2014/1 ... s-on-kstp/

Short summary:

Hodges wrote an open letter criticizing some police officers as bad apples. The police federation president responded angrily.

Navell Gordon was arrested about a month ago for canvassing at Cub on the Northside. He's an ex-felon trying to put his life back together and actually engage people in the community so they don't make the same mistakes he made.

Someone inside MPD planted this story as retaliation against the Mayor. The timing is more than a little suspicious, with the news breaking the evening before the Mayor's police body cam program went into action. This story had the likely intended effect of blunting media coverage of the camera program.

Note that in the KSTP stories, John Delmonico mentions that Navell was recently arrested, implying that his felony status is not so "ex" anymore. Of course he doesn't mention the arrest was over voter canvassing.

Chief Harteau was with the Mayor and Mr. Gordon. If police officers were truly concerned about the Mayor's office the correct course of action is to go to their supervisors and send it up the chain for clarification. Instead they went to the media. That wasn't an accident.

KSTP simply saw this as another way to put a black eye on urban DFL areas.

[min-chi-cbus]

Oh politics....it should be a sin to be political -- it seemingly only leads to bad things the more exposed to it one is.

Some "white-collar" crimes are so much more heinous and so much more vile than many of the common crimes people are institutionalized for, it makes me sick to my stomach how twisted some people are. Sorry for the rant, but I just get so sick of hearing stories like this and during major political crossroads like Midterms it seems to really boil over.

[David Greene]

Javier Morillo-Alicea has been posting some great stuff on this.

http://thuginpastels.com/2014/11/09/nav ... anization/

One of his readers notes that not only did KSTP blur out Gordon's face, they also blurred his shirt, which said, "Vote." They deliberately removed that context that would have explained what was really going on. Lawsuit coming from Mr. Gordon, I hope.

[twincitizen]

^I saw that as well and thought it was pretty heinous (on top of the base heinousness), but they actually blurred out his "NOC" logo/lanyard, as they did on the Mayor. They did not intentionally blur out "VOTE" on his shirt. <That sentence concludes the only possible thing one could defend KSTP

I've been following along on Twitter and the various blog posts, seeing how folks are going after KSTP's advertisers and lobbying them to dump KSTP until a retraction and full apology are issued. I fully support all of that -- let's shame the shit out of KSTP -- but I feel like the MPD (the specific individuals behind this) are the ones who should really feel the wrath. KSTP is certainly culpable as the messenger/agitator, but let's not forget for a second that they were spoon fed this story from members of the police department and police union. The individuals who contacted KSTP with this story need to be identified and terminated immediately.

[mattaudio]

Voka
Tehn

[Snelbian]

^I saw that as well and thought it was pretty heinous (on top of the base heinousness), but they actually blurred out his "NOC" logo/lanyard, as they did on the Mayor. They did not intentionally blur out "VOTE" on his shirt. <That sentence concludes the only possible thing one could defend KSTP

I've been following along on Twitter and the various blog posts, seeing how folks are going after KSTP's advertisers and lobbying them to dump KSTP until a retraction and full apology are issued. I fully support all of that -- let's shame the shit out of KSTP -- but I feel like the MPD (the specific individuals behind this) are the one's who should really feel the wrath. KSTP is certainly culpable as the messenger/agitator, but let's not forget for a second that they were spoon fed this story from members of the police department and police union. The individuals who contacted KSTP with this story need to be identified and terminated immediately.

Exactly. KSTP ran an insane, racist smear piece. But they were given that insane, racist smear piece by the head of the Police Officers Federation of Minneapolis. The same cop that wrote the angry response to Hodges' public suggestion that bad cops exist and that something should be done (statements she made the same day the DOJ said MPD was basically doing a subpar job of not being racist assholes).

Sure, boycott KSTP's sponsors. But Delmonico's badge and gun should be on a platter on Hodges' desk right now (and maybe would be already if he weren't the president of the union responsible for making sure bad cops face no retribution). And they wonder why relations with the public might be in bad shape.

[David Greene]

It's an attack on the Mayor and Chief Harteau. They went over Harteau's head. I agree that MPD is the real story here and people need to be fired for it. But this is about more than one incident, it's about continued racist behavior by MPD and their complete failure to acknowledge or even understand why they have poor relationships with communities of color. There's some good commentary here:

http://www.questionthepremise.org/new-b ... eyond-kstp

[Nathan]

True story: a few years ago I was initiated into that gang. The hazing and rituals were trying. I thought these people were my friends.

http://instagram.com/p/vJczX5g0pG/

[David Greene]

I didn't think anything would be able to restore Harteau's relationships with communities of color after skipping out on the neighborhood forum on police relations, but this just might do it. The police federation really screwed themselves on this one.

[Didier]

I fully support all of that -- let's shame the shit out of KSTP -- but I feel like the MPD (the specific individuals behind this) are the ones who should really feel the wrath.

Agreed.

[Scott16475]

KSTP has always been the local version of Inside Edition with poor news reporting and reporters. They were going for a big story regardless of its accuracy and a big story they got. Just not the one they wanted. KSTP is a terrible news organization and wonders why they have less than 10 viewers.

[mplsjaromir]

This whole ordeal just goes to show what little backbone R.T. Rybak had as mayor. He never once challenged the police union in any meaningful way. Sure he was a nice guy, a tireless optimist, and he was ahead of the curve in regards to some meaningful urban trends. But I would never trust him to make tough/controversial decisions, he is just too needy for positive validation.

[Viktor Vaughn]

I'm sure many of you already saw this, but I figure it should be posted. As we hoped, the Daily Show ripped into #pointergate.

Stewart Adds #Pointergate to ‘Innocent Things Black People Do That Look Suspicious’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkkPVY6jDiw

[Wedgeguy]

The thing I like about John Stewart is that he can subtly make a fool look like an ass. Instead of the Mayor looking bad, the whole nation saw that our police have some real problems here. How can we trust the police when they do stupid s**t like that. To have John Stewart basically come out and point the finger back at the police is not a good light for our department.

[FISHMANPET]

Yeah I like how he went right for the throat by putting 2 and 2 together to reveal that this was really a hit piece by the Police.