South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

Crime

Crime Crooks Downtown Sioux Falls Mayor TenHaken Riverline District Sioux Falls

Mayor of Sioux Falls Paul TenHaken blows off a one year 700% increase in murders

l3wis 17Comments

This is pretty typical of Poops, and the social challenges he ignores; climate change, covid, the homeless, panhandlers, dead monkeys, and many, many, many more. This is a guy who recently said, “I’m over it.” He just doesn’t f’ing get it? Does he? At a presser today he said this about our 700% increase in murders;

“Last year, we had a near-record low number of homicides. We had two. So, crime ebbs and flows,” said TenHaken.

Typical of a challenge with Poops. If it is too difficult to solve; ignore, deny, coverup and kick that can down the road.

The first thing I would do boy genius is have chief Thum research how each crime occurred and break it down into categories. Some may be preventable, some may not. This is Criminal Sociology 101. Why do I feel like this town is being ran by a class of 5th graders?! Ironically, they would probably make better choices. Stop worrying if you are going to get your big fat commission on the new convention center and start acting like the chief administrator of our city, of course after your jumping jacks with the kiddos. weird

Crime Downtown Sioux Falls Homeless Mayor TenHaken SF City Council SFPD Sioux Falls

It was only a matter of time

l3wis 3Comments

I warned some city councilors several months ago that with the increase of transients in Sioux Falls, things like this would occur;

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (Dakota News Now) – A 32-year-old Sioux Falls man has now been indicted on murder charges after a man he allegedly assaulted passed away from his injuries.

Robin Swallow was indicted by the Minnehaha County State’s Attorney’s Office on Wednesday for murder in the first degree and one alternative count of murder in the second degree.

The incident occurred on September 22 near 12th Street and Cleveland Avenue in Sioux Falls.

A group of people were drinking in an area of trees when an altercation occurred.

A 64-year-old man was taken to the hospital with life-threatening injuries and Swallow was arrested for aggravated assault, kidnapping, robbery and a parole violation.

The victim has been identified as Michael Raymond Colvin of Sioux Falls. Police said Colvin was hospitalized for several weeks and ultimately passed away. After an autopsy, Colvin’s death was ruled a homicide.

The troubling part is what if an innocent bystander happened upon this? Would they have been safe? The ‘transient’ problem we have in Sioux Falls isn’t just about addicts wandering our streets aimlessly it’s about a city government and police department that have stood their ground in NOT helping to MANAGE the issue, and also NOT filling us in. Why does the SFPD have a public information officer if that officer doesn’t tell us anything?!

It’s time the City Council had a serious working session to discuss a long term strategy on how to MANAGE the issue before more people end up dead.

Crime Mayor High Crimes Mayor TenHaken SFPD Sioux Falls

I’m not the only one getting tired of the lack of answers from the Sioux Falls Police Department

l3wis 7Comments

This is a common thing I hear from residents all over Sioux Falls, not just lower income neighborhoods;

Sandy thinks more should and could be done.

“As a recent transplant to South Dakota from Nebraska, I’m deeply disappointed by the apparent lack of initiative from local law enforcement in addressing the issues plaguing this area. Listening to police briefings only raises more concerns. Every response seems to be, ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I’ll have to look into that.’ I’m tired of the vague answers. I want clear solutions and a solid plan of action. Enough is enough. It’s time for real accountability and results. Sioux Falls deserves better.”

I warned several councilors and the media that once those scanners go silent all pertinent and relative information coming from the SFPD will end. Trust me, it wasn’t that great before the scanners went silent, but it is 10x worse now. Take Dunham Park incident for instance referenced in the above article. The next day at the briefing the police seemed to know very little, which seemed odd to me because every place I went to someone had a different version of the story.

This is the OTHER problem with closed government. If you don’t tell the public what is going on they will make up their own version of the story. Years ago when the directors didn’t run away from me like I was on fire, one walked up to me after a meeting quite irate and says, “That post you did today about the zoning issue was completely off base and wrong.” I said, “Oh, okay, I can update and correct it. Can you give me the proper information and documentation?” They just grunted and walked away.

Disinformation is worse then NO information. Rumors and gossip gets circulated because you can’t be honest with the public. And it is just NOT the SFPD it is most city departments being led by a militant closed government administration that WORKS at keeping information from the public.

The best way to solve a crime is to get everyone on board with the investigation. Tell us what you know and whey you know it. You never know, a random ‘Sandy’ might just help you solve your crimes. Common sense Chief Thum, Common F’ing sense!

Crime David ZoKaites Media Sioux Falls

UPDATE: David Zokaites has all charges against him dismissed

l3wis 5Comments

UPDATE: David told me this week he did a video interview with a local videographer and after it is edited, produced and posted to YouTube I will share.

I got word yesterday that all charges against David were dropped before the hearing.

Ever since this happened I have had several conversations with David about the incident. Initially, as I understand it there was three charges against David, two were dropped pretty quickly but the 3rd charge didn’t get dropped until this week.

I told David after he gets the all clear to send me a guest post about his side of the story.

One of the reasons I never posted about this when it happened is because I know David, and didn’t think he did it, but felt it must go thru the court system before I comment on it.

I think the media owes David a massive apology jumping to judgement. Domestic disputes occur several times a day in this community, why isn’t the media reporting on that? Oh because David is ‘weird’. Funny how the media will report a candidate for mayor alledgedly involved in a domestic assault situation but won’t say anything about Marshall Selberg ILLEGALLY living out of his district for a year. I guess the David thing is a bigger story.

Once again, our Food Truck media in Sioux Falls can’t see the story in the forrest.

Crime Mayor High Crimes SFPD Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls has it’s own version of ‘Unsolved Mysteries’

l3wis 4Comments

In fact, it’s so strange, the public wasn’t engaged to solve it.

The rumor going around between officers is that on the night of the BLM protests at the mall when every law enforcement agency in the area responded someone robbed a big box store, and they weren’t looking for Busch Light and table saws. They took all of their guns. ALL OF THEM. Don’t know the value of that stuff, but I would guess north of a million dollars.

The irony is officers say the SFPD classified it as an unsolved crime pissing a lot of people off.

The minor disturbance of latch key kids throwing pebbles at officers in the mall parking lot was a great decoy to pull off one of the largest property crimes committed in Sioux Falls.

Unsolved.

You would have thought they would have reached out to the public to help solve such a great loss?

The last police chief left shortly after this happened.

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