Crime & Safety

Year In Review 2012: Crime

A look back at the biggest crime stories of 2012.

Hopkins’ crime rate is below average, but 2012 wasn’t without news on the law enforcement front.

Here’s a look at the biggest crime stories of the year.

 

Find out what's happening in Hopkinswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Undercover Sting Targets Two Hopkins Massage Parlors

Police arrested masseuses at two different massage parlors May 1 after receiving an anonymous letter accusing the establishments of allowing prostitution on the premises. The arrests follow a separate prostitution arrest in August at Hopkins Asian Massage that resulted in a new ordinance requiring licenses for most massage business.

Find out what's happening in Hopkinswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

 

Edina Man Suspected in Bow and Arrow Drive-By at Blake School

In June, a man—later identified as 25-year-old Kirk Martin Rader, of Edina—pulled up in front of the Blake School in a dark-colored BMW, shot an arrow in the front door, retrieved the arrow and drove away. Officers found a broken piece of an arrowhead wedged inside the front door and a “wrench-like tool” wedged between the doorframes. Rader’s name was written in marker on the tool. Additional arrows were later recovered from some trees on school property

 

Former Hopkins Resident Killed in St. Paul Robbery

The man fatally shot during a December robbery of a St. Paul Kowalski’s was identified as Melvin D. Fletcher Jr., a man who’d grown up in Hopkins. Brian Cosgriff—the Alice Smith physical education teacher and head girls’ basketball coach—started teaching Fletcher when the boy was five. Later, Fletcher and his older brother, Mandel Perkins, lived with Cosgriff periodically when things got hard. Cosgriff recalled a kind-hearted boy prone to making bad decisions.

  • Man Fatally Shot in St. Paul Robbery Grew Up in Hopkins

 

Hopkins Debates the Place of Sex Offenders in Community

Sex offenders were in the news a handful of times in 2012. In August, residents learned that a level III predatory offender would be moving onto the 300 block of Jackson Avenue North. The unease many residents felt wasn’t helped when they learned in September that a predatory offender had gone missing—news that was followed a month by the announcement that another offender had disappeared.

  • Level 3 Sex Offender Moving To Hopkins This Week
  • What Does it Mean to Have a Level III Sex Offender Move Into Hopkins?
  • Police Searching for Missing Sex Offender
  • Another Predatory Offender Goes Missing from Hopkins
  • How Did a Hopkins Predatory Offender Go Missing?

 

Medical Examiner IDs Hopkins Man as North Minneapolis Murder Victim

A 41-year-old Hopkins man was identified as the man who was found beaten to death late Nov. 17 night in North Minneapolis. Kerry Scott was found unresponsive behind 3307 Girard Ave. N. He died at 11:10 p.m. from multiple blunt-force injuries.

***

Be sure to check out the entire series, published on the following dates:

  •  Dec. 26: Most-Read Stories
  • Dec. 27: Crime
  • Dec. 30: Business
  • Dec. 31: Schools
  • Jan. 1: Politics and Elections
  • Jan. 2: Government

 

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