Who Are the Cop-Like Non-Cops Zipping Around Nicollet Mall in Golf Carts?

Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.

'Unparalleled Security' on Nicollet Mall

There's a new private security force zipping around in electric golf carts along Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis. Their assignment: the work the Minneapolis Police Reserves had been doing.

The role of Unparalleled Security, which has been contracted by the Downtown Improvement District, is engaging with people along the Mall, according to WCCO. "It's providing a Nicollet security presence, unarmed with a lot of training, deescalation, Narcan training, crisis intervention, basic first aid, youth engagement," said Shane Zahn, DID's senior director of community safety.

Police officers are still connected by radio and can be dispatched, but Unparalleled's Michael Beech says they can do a lot to help young people, homeless folks, and others who are down on their luck along Nicollet Avenue: "Giving them the resources from if they need somewhere to stay, clothing anything like that if they need someone to talk to. Sometimes a friend just helps."

Even if that friend is a rent-a-cop contractor hired by a "business-led," municipally funded nonprofit, it seems. The pilot program on Nicollet is scheduled to run through September.

MPD's Disciplinary Secrets

Speaking of things the Minneapolis Police Department isn't doing, Deena Winter at the Minnesota Reformer has a scoop today on the department's failure to publish all disciplinary records as required.

Only after a November records request did the department release a batch of nine disciplinary decisions—which should have been listed on the city’s public database of police disciplinary actions—including the suspension of one officer, Lt. Dennis Hamilton, who drove a city vehicle a whopping 60,000 miles without authorization between March 2019 and September 2021. This guy was dri-ving: sometimes more than 200 miles in a single workday. Another unlisted disciplinary action? An officer who received a written reprimand after he asked a robbery victim out to coffee. "After taking a robbery report at the victim’s home in October 2021, Truong called the victim four times later that night, according to city documents," Winter writes. Brooooo. The robbery is a crime, not a meet-cute!

Harry Singh's Closed (for Now)

One of these days I know I'll read a Reddit post that's headlined "The Situation at Harry Singh's" and be outright devastated to learn that Eat Street's longtime king of heat is hanging up his apron (or, just as possibly, has passed away at his post in front of the grill).

But today is not that day! While such a Reddit post was shared yesterday, citing the current closed status of Harry Singh's Original Caribbean Restaurant on Nicollet Avenue, the top-voted reply reads: "I spoke with Harry last night. The restaurant is closed but he’s gearing up for the State Fair. He’ll be looking for a new place to reopen after the fair."

Now, does that mean Harry's isn't reopening on Eat Street, where it had just reopened last fall, at all after the fair? Does that mean it'll be back for a while and then move to a new location? Only time will tell, and we'll try to sleuth out the info for ya. But take this as a sign to order some doubles during the State Fair this year.

WALZ WATCH: What’s the Latest?

I don't think it's out of line to say that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is the internet's favorite VP hopeful. Between his aw-shucks Midwestern sensibilities, his high school teaching history, the slew of progressive legislation he signed into law during the last few years, his stroke-of-genius branding of Republicans as "weird"... this guy's got the energy that resonates with the online contingent.

Now, he's trending on Threads, with the hashtag (or whatever it's called over there) BigDadEnergy. Will the Threads momentum be enough to catapult Walz over Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, who now appears to be the odds-on favorite (or does he?) to land alongside Kamala Harris on the presidential ticket? Almost certainly not, but provincialism dictates that WALZ WATCH must plow ahead regardless. In any event, let's close out this edition of the Flyover with some of my favorite Walz-related posts from the last week...