From the editorial: "Consider the upside of making drunk driving-prevention technology standard (in new cars). ... We could save more than 10,000 lives and prevent more than 300,000 injuries that occur now, every year, as a result of alcohol-related collisions."
From the editorial: "It's an ongoing commitment with meaningful results, an extension of the regular and effective conversations Duluthians and our police have been having for years."
In late September, with shootings surging in Duluth, and with more incidents of gunfire in the first nine months of 2020 than during all of 2019, Mayor Emily Larson offered Duluthians this reassurance: “You are really safe — if you are not involved.”
A sudden surge in shootings in Duluth is enough to spark speculation that the assessment of Chicago Superintendent David Brown about all the shootings there could be applied up north here, too.
It has to be heartening to our local law enforcement. With calls around the country to defund the police and even abolish the police — and with expletives and worse being hurled at officers — here, there has been a noticeable groundswell of support for officers, our neighbors who put their lives on the line to keep us safe.
As an attorney and former public defender, I have deep familiarity with our criminal justice system. I’ve seen it at its best and at its worst. As a society, we must dismantle structural racism and make fundamental changes. At the heart of these conversations is a call to reimagine how to best achieve true public safety for all.
Column writer David McGrath’s suggestion in the June 7 News Tribune that a four-year college degree could help solve problems inherent in our policing system was, at best, naive ( Local View: “Clearly, threshold to become a cop needs to be raised”).
