Minneapolis– A Northeast Minneapolis threesome of crime-fighting activists is hoping to expand their mission to clean up their neighborhood, and then some, by taking their message to the people.

The trio, Mark Fox, Shelley Leeson and John Schulte, has launched a monthly newspaper dedicated to improving public safety and livability in Minneapolis. They’ve named the paper the Minneapolis Defender.

Schulte, who directs the newspaper’s development, said they settled on the Defender nameplate because of the prevailing feeling among people they speak to that “Northeast, and all of Minneapolis, really, is under siege by criminals.” Schulte said the mission of the paper is to give people a sense that there are things they can do to impact the siege of criminal activity. “We’re giving people information that they can use to take action,” he said.

Over the last year-and-a-half, the three have been the backbone of the Northeast Citizen Patrol (NECP), and were also the driving force in the successful launch of Minneapolis chapter of the Guardian Angels in 2006, and, individually, have launched and operated a number of small businesses over the last 20 years, so they have considerable experience in launching successful endeavors.

Their interests turned to crime-fighting when Schulte founded the NECP in 2005. That summer, Schulte, Fox and one other person, all residents of Audubon Park, formed a walking group in an attempt to deter crime following an incident in which a couple walking to the corner store had been beaten and mugged by a gang of teenage girls near 27th and Central Avenue NE. Leeson, a resident of the Waite Park neighborhood, met Schulte at a public safety meeting not long after that, and, along side Schulte, took on the role of co-director for the NECP. (Although the trio spawned the Minneapolis Guardian Angels in the spring of 2006 through the NECP, they handed over the leadership of the Minneapolis Guardian Angels to others in August 2006, so that they could concentrate their efforts back on a local level with the NECP.)

Schulte commented that although the NECP has grown significantly and has evolved to include many new crime-fighting facets in addition to walking groups, they felt like an even bigger step needed to be taken. “We needed a way to get our message out to more people – to get more people involved in restoring safety to their neighborhoods.”

In November 2006, the three of them formed a business partnership through which they are producing the newspaper. Fox, who is the newspaper’s design supervisor, and Leeson, the editorial director, supply and write much of the content for the paper, but they also encourage submissions from neighborhood contributors and student writers. “Our goal is to make this a real community newspaper. We want residents to write about safety and livability concerns and the successes that they’ve had in their own neighborhoods,” Leeson said. She says their goal is to create a greater awareness of public safety issues and offer resources to engage residents in taking an active role in improving public safety and livability.

The Northeast Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce and the Minneapolis Regional Chamber of Commerce (MRCC) have both designated public safety as their top priority for 2007. According to the February 2007 issue of the MRCC’s Business Briefing magazine, “a safer Minneapolis is crucial to helping businesses succeed.” Schulte echoed that sentiment and said that part of the mission of the Minneapolis Defender is to support public safety organizations and initiatives “which are vital to the survival of businesses and the safety of our neighborhoods.”

According to Fox, they’ve designed the content to invigorate a sense of civic duty in residents. “We hope to get the message across to people that each of us has not only the ability to take action to improve our neighborhoods, but we have a responsibility to do so. We can’t just live here, look the other way, and expect the police or anybody else to keep us safe. It has to start with each of us,” Fox said.

The Minneapolis Defender has a circulation of 20,000 copies per month and is distributed to homes and businesses throughout the entire 2nd Precinct, which includes Northeast and Southeast Minneapolis and the U of M campus area. The paper includes photos of some of Hennepin County’s and Minneapolis’ most wanted criminals, neighborhood crime statistics, a police crime blotter, investigative reporting and news analysis. The paper also carries communications from public safety and law enforcement officials, as well as messages from local political representatives in regard to their actions on public safety issues. The paper also features editorial commentary, letters from readers and even takes a light-hearted look at some serious topics and provides a look at public safety issues from years past.

Leeson remarked that the three partners feel strongly that individuals in a community have a duty to act cooperatively against crime and disorder, and that they have attended many meetings at which police officials have encouraged community participation in increasing public safety. “We’re going to help spread that message,” she said.

Local businesses and community to benefit

The general sense among the paper’s advertisers is that they are happy to have another local source for advertising. Leeson said that when she spoke to the owner of a local print shop on East Hennepin, “the owner was pretty thrilled that she’d have a new choice for advertising.” Another merchant on Johnson Street, who said he hadn’t advertised in the local print media in some time, was also eager to place an ad, Leeson said.

Schulte said that all three partners have operated other small businesses prior to launching the newspaper, and, having done so, have an understanding of the budgetary concerns of small business people. “Aside from providing the public safety content, one of our main goals when we started the paper was to provide a lower-cost advertising vehicle than was currently available,” Schulte said, adding that they’ve also included a Web component to the newspaper.

Leeson’s brother, Vince Leeson, a local remodeling contractor, was one of the first businesses to purchase an ad. “When I spend money on advertising, I want to make sure my ad is pinpointed to my potential customers,” said Vince Leeson of Home Street Home Improvers, “and the Minneapolis Defender will definitely be picked up by people invested in the neighborhood.”

Schulte said that based upon their experience with the citizen patrol, they realized that the people who were participating with them to improve public safety were doing so because they wanted their neighborhoods to be safe places to explore shopping, dining and entertainment choices. “Our target readers are those same kinds of people, those who want to support local businesses,” he said.

The three partners also agreed that they would donate forty percent of new subscription sales back to the Northeast Citizen Patrol, and will also pay local youth groups and non-profits to deliver papers door-to-door or sell subscriptions in order to raise funds for their programs. Fox stated, “It’s a great way to teach youth that they have other alternatives to hanging out on the corner; they can actually participate in something that has a tangible benefit to them.”