I sit at my desk staring at a bullet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I can\u2019t stop looking at it. I keep thinking of the almost infinite \u201cwhat ifs\u201d associated with the shiny .45 caliber cartridge. I look at the bullet and I stare intently, though the focus is blurred from the moisture that continues to accumulate and drip from my eyes. I\u2019m almost in disbelief. There is a .45 caliber bullet sitting on my desk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This bullet has a story, but I only know part of it. The part I know, I don\u2019t like at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I guess at this point it\u2019s a good idea to let you know how I\u2019ve become intimately linked with this bullet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well, it\u2019s not a magic bullet, so it didn\u2019t just all of a sudden appear on my desk \u2026 I brought it here. I had to. It\u2019s my civic duty as a decent human being.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You see, I had to bring the bullet to my desk because it was found on the street \u2026 in a pile of shattered glass just in front of our offices of Insight News<\/em> on Bryant Avenue North in North Minneapolis. The bullet was found less than a half a block from two elementary schools and a block and a half from a middle school. I had to retrieve the bullet because it seems the Minneapolis police were unwilling \u2026 unbothered to remove it themselves. To them, it seems, it was no big deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I know this because when the bullet was brought to my attention, I immediately did the responsible thing and called the police. I made the call at approximately 11:47 a.m. on Aug. 26. I told dispatch that a live round<\/em> was in the street in the middle of broken glass and we were not touching the bullet to try and maintain the integrity of the crime scene. Afterall, I myself, have reported on stories where bullets were found to have had both DNA and fingerprints on them. Dispatch asked for my name, phone number, address of the property and even which direction of the street it was on. I obliged by offering all the details of which she asked. She asked would I be at the location for another 30 minutes or so, and I said I would, and she said an officer would make contact with me shortly. This is important, so I\u2019ll circle back to this in a bit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The location of the bullet was next to recent construction, so I grabbed a leftover hazard sign \u2013 you know the ones with the big blinking yellow light \u2026 they\u2019re quite visible (again, I\u2019ll get back to this too) \u2026 and placed it over the shattered glass and live .45 caliber bullet<\/em>, and I went inside awaiting a police call. That call never came.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At close to 4:40 p.m., still concerned about the bullet in the street, I looked outside to see the hazard sign undisturbed still sitting over the glass and the bullet. I was leaving for the day, but there was no way I was going to let the bullet stay behind \u2026 stay for some kid to pick up, show it off to his or her friends \u2026 do like many kids do \u2026 like I as a kid did \u2026 try to fire the bullet with a hammer and nail, vice grips or some other form of \u201czip gun,\u201d which is what kids did in my neighborhood growing up. Heaven forbid some child pick up the bullet, take it to school to show off, get suspended, expelled and unjustly exposed to the criminal injustice system all because of a shiny \u201ctoy\u201d found in the streets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, with a napkin, I picked up the bullet and took to Facebook to express my anguish to the public. A day later and here I am staring at this bullet, thankful that I\u2019m the one looking at it instead of some emergency room doctor \u2026 or coroner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m a journalist, so I do what comes natural \u2026 I question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I called the Minneapolis Police Department spokesman, John Elder, to ask for official comment and to get the average response times for calls either by zip code or precinct. I\u2019m in the troubled Fourth Precinct \u2026 home to the killers of unarmed Jamar Clark<\/a> and home to the racist Christmas Tree<\/a> in its lobby decorated with Newport cigarettes, Popeye\u2019s cups, malt liquor cans and yellow crime scene tape. I also asked for a log of all officers on duty in the precinct and for a log of all calls between 11:40 a.m. Aug. 26 and 5 p.m. Aug. 26. I was told the request for information would have to be made as a data request, which I promptly requested online. But the \u201cofficial comment\u201d that I requested struck me as a bit odd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMr. Colbert. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOur squad did respond when they were available to. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe call came in at 11:56 (a.m.) and the squad arrived at 4:02 (p.m.). They tried to make contact and were unable to locate the property nor anyone at the address,\u201d is what was sent as the official response. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Remember that part earlier I said I\u2019d get back to? Well, I\u2019m back to it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Again, I was told by dispatch that I\u2019d get a call within 30 minutes but 4:02 p.m. is four hours and six minutes from the time they report getting the call. A whole lot can happen within four hours and six minutes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But again, I didn\u2019t pick up the bullet until after<\/em> the supposed response. I say supposed because I didn\u2019t leave the premises during said time, several others were also inside the premises, as I said earlier, I left the full address and my cell phone number as a contact. Somehow a trained officer couldn\u2019t find a street address? Oh, and remember that whole hazard sign? He, she or they missed that too? Really? Hum. Um, OK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I can also verify I did not receive any call at or around 4:02 p.m. on Aug. 26. Again, I\u2019m a journalist, so I\u2019m trained to be a bit of a skeptic. I asked Elder for at report from the supposed responding officer(s) and he replied, \u201cNo report was generated.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I hate to sound like the Church Lady from \u201cSaturday Night Live,\u201d but, \u201cWell, isn\u2019t that convenient.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I then sent a follow-up request for the audio from my call to dispatch. I just want to verify for myself that I provided the proper address and phone number. I\u2019m awaiting response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My trauma and anger stem from multiple sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first source of trauma is knowing that something happened outside of my place of employment that left a bullet and shattered glass in its aftermath. In three years, I\u2019ve experienced two shootings on the block and a block away I witnessed a man take his last breath after being shot \u2026 an image that will haunt me for eternity. I\u2019m traumatized to the point that I hear hammering and I instinctively think gunshots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My anger comes from the fact that police claim time and again they don\u2019t have cooperation from the residents in North Minneapolis, yet when I \u2026 a concerned resident of North Minneapolis \u2026 do everything asked of me as a responsible citizen the response is \u2026 well, no response. Or, as they claim, a four hour and six minute late response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And yet, here I sit staring at a bullet on my desk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I sit at my desk staring at a bullet. I can\u2019t stop looking at it. I keep thinking of the almost infinite \u201cwhat ifs\u201d associated with the shiny .45 caliber cartridge. I look at the bullet and I stare intently, though the focus is blurred from the moisture that continues to accumulate and drip from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4639,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[2348,2862,38],"class_list":["post-4638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-jamar-clark","tag-john-elder","tag-minneapolis","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Insight-News-Website-Images-26-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4638"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4640,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4638\/revisions\/4640"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}