Proctor Journal

After months of planning, countless phone calls - faxes and e-mails to various experts on Public Safety, and long hours of classroom time along with before and after school work sessions the time was finally here.

Krista Parrent, Stacy Smith, Nick Podgornik, Dusty Letica, and DECA advisor Jay Belcastro were on a school bus headed to St. Paul for a rally and symposium that promised to be the climax of DECA?s latest Public Relations Campaign, ?Promoting Public Safety?.

Students from Hermantown and Carlton High Schools joined Proctor in making the trip to the Capitol in order to show and voice their support for the Proctor DECA project.

The students had taken on the massive task of developing an educational campaign aimed at students from the Northland about ?Promoting Public Safety? in Minnesota. This project is ?CriMNet?. This state of the art technology-based crime fighting tool is the only one of its kind in the United States.

Simply stated CriMNet is a user friendly but secure computer network system of sorts that will link together all aspects of law enforcement, city - county and state prosecutors, the court system at every level, the prison system, and probation workers.

The current system has serious loopholes that allows 40% to 90% of those convicted of serious crimes to fall through the cracks in the system.

Tom Kooy, a veteran officer who served 15 years in the Hennepin County Sheriff?s Department before joining the CriMNet staff as its Deputy Director, told one high school class, ?The criminals know how to use the current system better than we (authorities) do.?

The finale of this DECA effort came Monday afternoon when as many as 150 people gathered in the rotunda of the Minnesota Capitol to join students in showing support for CriMNet. The students attracted dozens of visitors to the Capitol, many of whom were given their first introduction to CriMNet. On the other end of the spectrum were scores of legislators, law enforcement officials, representatives of the statewide judicial system including Judge Thomas McCarthy representing the Minnesota Supreme Court, representatives of the Department of Corrections, and others wanting to see CriMNet funded and implemented as soon as possible.

Minnesota State Senator Jane Ranum said of CriMNet, ?This is not just a new look for an old system that everyone already knows doesn?t work. CriMNet is an all new high tech answer to a serious problem that will put every bit of information about a person?s criminal background at the fingertips of every law enforcement officer, judge, prosecutor, prison official, and probation officer in Minnesota.?

The Senator continued, ?In my life away from the Capitol, I?m a Hennepin County Deputy Prosecutor. I see the problems with the old system time after time and have seen how badly we need CriMNet in place.?

Ranum told everyone on hand how much it meant to see high school students taking the time to learn about CriMNet, and then traveling from the Twin Ports area to show their support for this crime fighting tool.

In briefly outlining the background of CriMNet, Ranum reported this effort started some years ago as a metro area project. She explained CriMNet gained statewide momentum in May of 1999 when ?a young woman named Katie Poirier was murdered by someone who should have never been walking the streets again given his criminal record.?

At the same time Steve Strachan, a Sergeant with the Lakeville Police Department and a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives, added, ?Being a cop out on the street isn?t like you see on TV cop shows. On TV a cop has all the information he or she needs about every criminal so they can solve a crime in an hour. In real life there is very little known about many of the most dangerous repeat criminals because of incomplete records, frequent name changes, a lack of communications between jurisdictions and agencies, and many other breakdowns in the current system.?

Echoing these points of view was Acting CriMNet Executive Director Reggie David.

David reported that CriMNet went fully on-line ready for use in Carver County last week. Several more counties are slated to be up and running in June, which hopefully will be followed county by county until ultimately the entire state will be covered by the CriMNet system.

Senator Becky Lourey, who organized the Katie Poirier Abduction Task Force, spoke briefly praising the DECA students for bringing the need for CriMNet to high school students and organizations in Minnesota.

Lourey also stressed the need for full state funding for this project. Currently local levels of government are being asked to match state funding.

Senator Dave Kleis, ranking minority leader of the Minnesota Senate Crime Prevention and Public Safety Committee, voiced his support for CriMNet and gave his praises for Proctor DECA and their hard work in bringing CriMNet to high school students - the future voters, taxpayers, and leaders of Minnesota.

Kleis reported on a piece of legislation that would provide for custom American Pride license plates. The revenue generated by those plates would go toward paying the matching funds instead of local government having to pay.

On hand at the invitation of Proctor DECA were representatives of U.S. Senators Mark Dayton and Norm Coleman. Both expressed the regret the Senators could not be on hand, but they felt it important they be in Washington, as a key vote was due on Monday for Federal funding for CriMNet. Both Senators planned to be at that committee hearing to stand up for CriMNet.

The aides read letters from Dayton and Coleman, while Dayton?s spokesperson Barb Johnson added she comes from a law enforcement family. Her husband is a retired police officer, and her daughter is employed in the metro area as a police officer. ?I?ve heard from both my husband and daughter how much CriMNet is needed not only in Minnesota but nationwide.?

She stressed that is why both Dayton and Coleman are committed to working together to carry on the efforts of the late Senator Paul Wellstone, who had made the commitment to see CriMNet up and running in all 50 states.

Coleman staff member Susan McDonald echoed those same hopes on behalf of the Senator. ?Senator Coleman met sometime ago with CriMNet for a full briefing and demonstration of the actual system. Right there, he committed to full support of this great system,? added McDonald.

Hermantown teacher and Proctor School Board member Jim Schwarzbauer, who made the trip to the Capitol with several of his students had nothing but praise for the Proctor DECA project and the response these students had from the VIP speakers they had invited to participate.

Schwarzbauer was so impressed with the presentation made by the DECA students, and the response from those invited to speak that he planned to make a full report to the Proctor School Board.