Corrections Made to Disturbing Crimes in Bemidji: Mayor’s Statement on Jeremy Jourdain’s Disappearance – Not Joshua.

BEMIDJI, MN (trfnews.i234.me) Bemidji Mayor, Jorge Prince comments on recent, disturbing crimes.
Neil Berg here in buiji Minnesota where the recent rape of an 11-year-old in search for two young people NAA Kingbird and Joshua Jordan has fueled all kinds of rumors at this point just one person has been charged in the sexual assault case here’s beiji mayor George Prince with a reassuring message about all these disturbing crimes now I do want to take a moment and I want to address some things that have happened in our community we recently again these are my own thoughts and my own words as we all are regrettably aware there was a sexual assault of an 11-year-old minor that took place at the end of September this was a disturbing shocking and heartbreaking event for our community and for the victim and her family I really am heartbroken for the victim and for everyone that was impacted and I offer my sincere thoughts and prayers for her and for her family as mayor I see my responsibilities is twofold first to do everything in my power to make sure the rights of the victim are respected and that Justice is served second to work to ensure that our community is safe for everyone it is these two things that I remain focused on as I carry out my elected duties I know there are many questions that people have about what happened I have a lot of questions too however this is an active investigation and so law enforcement must use caution in how much and when information is released to protect the Integrity of the investigation I know many of the beiji police officers and investigators over the last three years I’ve spent time with many of them they’re good people doing a really tough job their mothers and fathers and their community members too and I know they’re committed to conducting a thorough investigation and addressing our community’s concerns as appropriate they care about this case so do I this investigation is complex and it involves several law enforcement agencies therefore I believe it is important for our community to give investigators our support and the necessary time to do their jobs appropriately over the past two weeks I have had conversations with both the white Earth and Red Lake tribal councils although we were meeting on other matters they each took time to express to me their concerns regarding this terrible incident I answered their questions as best I could and actively listened to their concerns including the cases of other missing indigenous people in our community now we know there are people who have been missing in our community for some time including Jeremy jordane and NAA kingberg as some may know another search for them was conducted in September in partnership with the Minnesota State Office of missing and murdered indigenous relatives or mmir and the buiji police department there were over 100 people helping search which I believe is now the 14th search conducted in our city I attended the search so that I could help where I could and learn more about the resources that exist for doing searches such as those provided by mmir is I believe these kinds of resources are important for Community I believe there will be more searches in the future and I encourage everyone in our community to get involved as these families need our support and they need answers to find out what happened to their loved ones lastly I realize that there has been much conversation in our community about human trafficking this is an important discussion as we know this is a serious issue in our nation as it relates to our city I think it’s important for you to know some of the efforts of the beiji police department in this regard as early as 2013 our department was proactively placing our officers through specific training dedicated to identifying and stopping human trafficking and placing educational material in all the hotels in our city in 2015 our department obtained grant funding to help form the Northstar task force which consisted of neighboring uh law enforcement agencies including the whiter Nation police department and the Leech Lake Department of Public Safety in 2016 our Department participated in the University of Minnesota’s sex trade trafficking and Community well-being initiative which allowed us to have a voice and input regarding demands and Trends in our area in late 2016 and 17 the department recognized the high number of juvenile runaways in our area and they worked with our City attorney to find a way to utilize their social media platform to post information about missing juveniles which has been successful in helping locate some of those people in 20 8 our department updated and trained all of our officers on a new response to missing person’s policy this policy is based on best practices from the national Center for missing and exploited children and the Minnesota BCA missing persons Clearing House and in 2020 a buiji police department detective recognized a flaw in the tracking warrant law during a missing person investigation with input from her and assistance from the Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association chief Mike Maston testified in front of the Minnesota legislators once at the Senate Judiciary Committee and a second time at the house civil law committee regarding specific language changes that were needed the initiative resulted in a law change that helped our department and other missing person investigations and last least since 2015 our department has been active members of the human trafficking investigators task force this task force is organized by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal apprehension and consists of multiple agencies from across the state who work collaboratively on investigations regarding human trafficking and sexual exploitation of minors now I give you some of this background because often the public isn’t aware of how much work or time is being invested by departments in the background um as departments seek to be proactive especially our police department and I think you can see from what I’ve shared with you that human trafficking has been in continues to be important to this department and they continue to invest time and resources in the protection of our community I realize that recent events have been shocking and traumatic for our entire community and that they’re appalling and I think we all want to see Justice served in a safer Community for all I want you to know that I’m committed to those same goals and I believe our law enforcement agencies are as well and I just want to communicate that to you that everybody’s working hard to get the answers that everybody wants and the justice that all victims deserve I want to thank you for your time and as always I welcome your feedback thank you