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From 1932 to 1945 my great-uncle, Edward J. Brick (married to my great aunt Hattie Hennemann), was the St. Cloud chief of police. My father worked for 40 years in the Stearns County Auditor’s Office — the later years as the elected county auditor. Each year my father would plan the courthouse picnic held at St. Cloud’s Pioneer Park. All the city and county cops who attended knew us Hinnenkamp kids. I was the Hinnenkamp kid who stood out as I was the one showing off my flat top crew cut, which flat top the cops would teasingly rub and laugh.

I am writing this story as a Bernie Sanders democratic socialist who has had enough of the MAGA Republican state legislator and her party leaders’ attack of the DFL’s legislative agenda, which agenda passed in near total. Part of the MAGA attack is a fray of lies that the school resource officers (SRO) are being called monsters by us. Never true.

A second Minneapolis Tribune column about the SRO legislation is dated Sept. 24. This column is written by Myron Medcalf, who is Black. This column and the Sept. 6 column written by Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid’s Disability Law Centers’ attorney Maren Hulden gives us why this law needed to be created. You would need to read both columns to see through the MAGA lies. In part, Mr. Medcalf writes: “Our schools need full-time mental health support. Our children need after-school programs that allow them to expend their energy in safe environments … staffers need more training on developing bonds with kids across socioeconomic and racial lines … families, who have been burdened by financial constraints and a rapidly shifting economy that’s squeezing more people out than it is bringing in, need cash. Yeah, cash.”

Cops are government employees. An Aug. 13 Minneapolis Tribune editorial headline: “GOP must stop attacking government.” The MAGAs attacked our D.C. capital cops. Not anyone from the Democratic Party.

Ted Hinnenkamp
Albert Lea