Sexual assaults and carjackings each rose 5% in Minnesota 2024

Sexual assaults and carjackings each rose about five percent in Minnesota last year while other violent crimes fell slightly or remained flat. Newly-complied statistics from the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension show that there were nearly 22-hundred reported rapes statewide last year. Three-quarters occurred in a home and 40 percent of the victims were minors.

Carjackings — including attempted carjackings — also rose, with 426 incidents reported last year as compared to 401 in 2023. Vehicle theft — a separate category — fell 19 percent across Minnesota.

Murders and aggravated assaults fell slightly. The BCA says larceny — the most common crime — dropped to its lowest level in a half century.

The Bagley City Council will be holding an open meeting at the end of the month to decide whether to keep the town’s police department. The Bagley Police Department is staffed by three full-time officers and one part-timer. That's for a town of about thirteen hundred.

Bagley Mayor Duane Lewis told MPR News they're still in the early stages of looking at ways to cut costs and eliminating the police department is one of several options. He also said many small towns in Greater Minnesota contract out their law enforcement services. And since Bagley is the county seat for Clearwater the county sheriff’s office may play a larger role.

Target is the only grocer in the Dinkytown neighborhood of Minneapolis, leaving University of Minnesota students pressed for fresh, affordable groceries. Dinkytown, a predominantly student-populated neighborhood, is less populated during the summer months, leaving corporations hesitant to move in. Adding a grocery store to Dinkytown could become a multi-million dollar project for the neighborhood, as it would likely require construction of a new building.

The Pop's Art Theater in Rochester is hosting it's first “dusk-til-dawn” Horrothon. Co-owner Nate Nelson say the festival will start at 9 pm with the 1984 Freddy Krueger classic, “A Nightmare on Elm Street.” That's followed by a 40th anniversary screening of the Re-Animator film, based on an H. P. Lovecraft story. Then comes Nelson’s personal favorite, the Japanese comedy-horror “Hausu.”

There will also be secret short films and a 2 a.m. pizza party. The festival concludes with 5 a.m. breakfast and morning cartoons.

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