I didn’t pay much attention to the inadvertent jail death of the Duluth man who was found guilty of having sex with underage Grand Marais girls and then shot up the Cook County Court House. It was a big story but for me it was just another headline. Then today I heard this fuller account of a long standing culture of older men hitting up young girls in the County.
It made me stand back on my heels a bit.
One of the stories I don’t plan to write about for my book involves a prominent Minnesota Law enforcement officer. That is the only clue I will offer as the story I was told was based on rumors. If they are true this man, when he was in his twenties and/or thirties, chased young girls from the Grand Portage Indian Reservation. The Rez is also, of course, part of Cook, County. This Minneapolitan would have been introduced to the culture, as were some mentioned in the MPR story, by locals who knew all the good fishing hot spots.
