News from the Crabby Coffee Shop

Bloomington Police Chief Booker Hodges joins Kenny and Jay at the Crabby Coffee Shop for a conversation about what it actually takes to keep Minnesota’s biggest tourist attractions safe, what a functioning police department looks like in 2026, and the practical, often frustrating realities of identifying, arresting, and trying to convict members of Somali American gangs.

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Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt talks about keeping kids on the right track, what the job of policing actually requires, and the path that took her from Chicago to the top of Minnesota’s largest sheriff’s office. The conversation covers what Witt's background changed about how she sees the job: early intervention, school contact, and giving kids a reason to stay out of the system before an arrest ever happens. 

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Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher and Ramsey County Deputy Jama Shine enter the Shop for a direct look at how Somali gangs are organized and operating across the Twin Cities. Fletcher and Shine walk through what their office has publicly described as roughly a dozen Somali gangs in Minnesota, with an estimated core of about 300 active members, mostly teens and young adults, out of more than 100,000 Somali Minnesotans. They discuss how these groups differ from older Twin Cities sets: high mobility between Minneapolis, St. Paul, and suburbs such as Eden Prairie, Edina, Burnsville, and Hopkins; feuds that move quickly between neighborhoods, and no illegal involvement of alcohol, drugs, or money.

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Former Saint Paul City Council member Dave Thune pulls up a chair at the Crabby Coffee Shop to talk about what’s happening at City Hall: Mayor Kaohly Her, Police Chief Axel Henry, the lawsuit, and what it takes to actually run a city.

Thune spent two decades on the council representing Ward 2, downtown, West Seventh, the West Side. He knows how council, mayor, and police actually work when the cameras are off. Kenny and Jay get into the current fight: Henry’s lawsuit alleging sexual harassment, unwanted contact, and retaliation; the city’s investigation that found “offensive and inappropriate behavior” but did not substantiate harassment or retaliation; and the budget pressure on sergeants and commanders.

They talk city council dynamics, how a mayor and police chief have to work together (or don’t), public safety staffing, and the politics of a high-profile lawsuit that landed days after the city released a short summary of its report.

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Saint Paul resident Stacey Hanlin, living near the encampment off the running waters of the Mississippi, sits down and talks about what it actually feels like on the ground: the 911 calls, the crime, and the slow grind on everyday quality of life. Not a press release. Not a slogan. What it costs to live next to a camp that grew into an outdoor settlement.

Then downtown weighs in. Bill Collins, owner of Alary’s Bar on East Seventh, joins the table. Collins helped organize two dozen Saint Paul business owners to put their names on a letter backing Mayor Kaohly Her’s push to get the encampment problem under control. They talk about taxes, lost customers, staff who don’t feel safe, and why shopkeepers finally decided the status quo was more expensive than speaking up. This episode is about the bill nobody wants to itemize: public safety, property values, emergency response, and the human wreckage that doesn’t stay neatly in the woods.

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Minneapolis Ward 5 Council Member Pearll Warren pulls up a stool with Kenny Olson and Jay Kolls to talk North Side life, City Hall chaos, and cars that drive themselves while the rest of us still need coffee. She took the seat in 2026 and now gets the fun job of explaining what the council actually does, what it pretends to do, and what still is not working on the ground.

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This week, Kenny Olson and Jay Kolls sit down with Dr. Manjeet Rege, professor and chair of the Department of Software Engineering and Data Science at the University of St. Thomas and director of its Center for Applied Artificial Intelligence. Rege, the author of Ethics and Governance of Artificial Intelligence, cuts through the hype and the panic. The conversation covers what AI actually does well, where it still fails, who is accountable when it goes wrong, and what “ethical AI” means once the press release is over. Bias, deepfakes, jobs, data centers, governance, and whether Minnesota is ready for any of it all get a turn at the counter.

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Former DOJ national-security prosecutor and Guantanamo war-crimes attorney Michael Lebowitz joins The Crabby Coffee Podcast to talk 9/11, the second wave of attacks that almost followed, and terrorist vs. counterterrorist tactics. Dive deep in his new book Second Wave: Inside Al Qaeda’s Post-9/11 Attack Plan and America’s Secret Effort to Stop It. A prosecutor’s view of the first strike, the plot meant to come after, and whether we’re ready for the one that hasn’t happened yet.

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Barb Johnson, The longest-serving council president in city history sits down to share her unfiltered thoughts on today’s City Council, the ups and downs of keeping Target Center competitive, and the behind-the-scenes work that helped bring US Bank Stadium (and its economic impact) to Minneapolis. From navigating a changing council to the deals that shaped downtown’s sports and entertainment landscape, Johnson brings decades of institutional knowledge, North Side perspective, and the kind of no-nonsense insight that only comes from 20 years on the dais.  

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The Sheriff Bob Fletcher breaks down the use of Flock Safety license plate reader cameras across Ramsey County, how they’ve contributed to sharp drops in auto theft and violent crime, the auditing and data practices in place, and why he sees them as a key public-safety tool amid ongoing debates in St. Paul and beyond. Then the conversation turns to the upcoming Minnesota State Fair: the extra security measures, increased staffing (especially after dark on the Midway), warning letters sent to hundreds of young people with possible gang ties, and the overall plans to keep the Great Minnesota Get-Together safe for the expected crowds.

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