Elder abuse: A growing beat
With a new elder-abuse unit, St. Paul police focus attention on a rapidly growing category of crime, cases which are often difficult to investigate.
Star Tribune
October 25, 2010
It wasn't the ordinary crime investigation when Sgt. Mike Wortman reported to work early last week: A small, tidy room at a St. Paul care facility, an elderly woman lying in bed, a few questions about the way her daughter has been administering her medicine.
But then Wortman's new job isn't the ordinary crime beat: He's St. Paul's first full-time police investigator dedicated to Crimes Against the Elderly.
The unit was formed last month after years of an alarming increase in such crimes. Because perpetrators of elder abuse and similar crimes are prosecuted under general statutes that don't specify age, concrete statistics are hard to come by. But in St. Paul, police say they handled 77 cases of financial crimes against the elderly in 2008, up from 46 in 2006. All crimes against the elderly in St. Paul rose 14 percent from 2007 to 2008, said Assistant Police Chief Kenneth Reed.
Abridged
SOURCE: The StarTribune
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