St. Cloud Mayor Announces Return of Safe Streets Initiative

(KNSI) — St. Cloud is bringing back its Safe Streets Initiative after one person was hit in a drive-by shooting and another incident of shots fired within hours on the city’s south side Sunday.

In August, the St. Cloud Police Department was joined by the Minnesota State Patrol and the Stearns, Benton, and Morrison Counties Sheriff Offices for a saturation campaign in the city’s trouble spots. St. Cloud Mayor Dave Kleis says it is time to do it again.

“We’re adding another detail. That detail we did in August, we’re going to do again. We had some issues over the weekend and so we’re going to crack down again on that same area. I can tell you that one thing that’s extremely frustrating to me, it’s frustrating to the [police] chief too, and we keep arresting the same people.”

He says the criminal justice system needs bail reform so accused criminals aren’t back on the street in hours.

“Our folks can arrest them. We can keep arresting them, but until there’s some reform at the bench, our role locally here is the enforcement piece and our folks do a great job. When you hear of gunshots or something happened, usually within a short period of time they’re arrested but, you know, we’re not the ones that are sentencing them.”

He also says judges must do their part and stop handing down light sentences. “There really needs to be some reform in bail, [and] on the bench and people need to pay attention to judges and how they’re sentencing folks. There should never be a situation if somebody’s a violent offender that there’s no room in the jail or these folks are out on bail or get a slap on the wrist and our folks that are arresting them again.”

He also says St. Cloud State University’s enrollment has dropped over the years, and landlords are filling their buildings with anyone they can find. He says maybe it’s time to do something about those properties and make them single-family homes or duplexes instead of boarding houses.

The St. Cloud Police Department added four cops to its force last year, and the city has budgeted for another six cops this year.

Kleis says public safety will always be St. Cloud’s top priority.

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KNSI News Reporter Jake Judd contributed to this story.

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