Saint Paul to the Wall

The Saint Paul Police Foundation is closing the funding gap on a very important project we are working on to help recognize and remember St. Paul Police Officer John Lynaugh. Officer Lynaugh died in the line of duty on February 16, 2013.

In May of 2014 during National Police Week, Officer Josh Lynaugh’s name will be added to the Police Memorial Wall that is part of the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial in Washington D. C. The National Law Enforcement Officer Memorial is the nations monument to federal, state and local law enforcement officers who have died in the line of duty.

The Saint Paul Police Foundation is helping to cover the costs to support Officer Lynaugh’s fellow officers from St. Paul who will escort the Lynaugh family to Washington D.C. for the Ceremony. We have raised almost all the dollars we need but are $6,000 short of our goal.

Help support us as we prepare to send our officers to D.C.! We need your support, please donate today or mail your contribution to the Saint Paul Police Foundation, 175 West Kellogg Blvd, Suite 502, St. Paul, MN 55102, attention: St Paul to the Wall. Thank you for your support!

PAL (Police Athletic League)

PAL will be partnering with Harding High School in a new and innovative program.This partnership includes Harding High School making PAL part of their school curriculum. These students come from all over the City of Saint Paul and include every demographic that makes up the Saint Paul community.

Harding will give a licensed teacher partner, a certified fitness instructor and a Somali Educational Assistant as part of the partnership with PAL in a new course that will be called “PAL Fitness and Healthy Living”.

The program includes even more kids through the after school program. A key focal point of this program will be the Tim Jones Fitness Center. Named after a Harding graduate, and member of the Saint Paul Police Department, Tim Jones who was killed in the line of duty.

Interview Room Update

The Major Crimes Division of the Saint Paul Police Department has four interview/interrogation rooms located on the second floor of Police Headquarters, 367 Grove. These rooms are used by the Homicide/Robbery unit to conduct all of their onsite interview and interrogations. Many other units including FSVU, Burglary, Gangs and SIU also use the rooms for the same purpose. Each of these rooms is currently equipped with a camera and microphone to allow what occurs in the room to be monitored and/or recorded from a separate monitoring location.

The equipment in use has served its purpose well. However, the system is old and out of date. The quality of the audio and video is not at the standard required to satisfy prosecutors and juries, and to ensure a completely accurate portrayal of the evidence. Currently we record onto compact discs, which are later downloaded to a media drive. This process is cumbersome and lends itself to mistakes and malfunctions. By upgrading our equipment, the information could be stored directly to the drive, thus eliminating the possibility of error. Our rooms currently have very little sound proofing. There have been too many occasions where suspects have heard what other suspects, witnesses or. worse yet, victims said in other rooms.

Gun Range

The Saint Paul Police Department needs a new Indoor Range. The current location is slated to be town down this year. A new Indoor Range would allow the department to deploy training and qualifications much more efficiently. We estimate that the new range will cut training time from five weeks to 2.5 weeks, give the officers lateral movement and proper size and allow them to train with multiple firearms.

Any excess capacity of the range will be used to generate additional income. This will be accomplished through PDI and expanded training with other law enforcement agencies.