Shakopee Police To Host Community Meeting On 'Predatory Offender'

From the City of Shakopee: The Shakopee Police Department received information from the Minnesota Department of Corrections that Michael Liddell (9/29/1980), a Level III predatory offender, will be relocating to the 700 block of Fuller Street South in Shakopee on July 28, 2019. As allowed by Minnesota state statutes, the Shakopee Police Department will conduct a community notification meeting on:

DATE: Monday, July 22, 2019
TIME: 6:30 p.m.
LOCATION: Shakopee Community Center, Community Room, 1255 Fuller St. S.

The community notification meeting is open to the public. Staff from the Minnesota Department of Corrections will provide information on Liddell’s offenses, conditions of release, guidelines about predatory offender registration and general safety information. Representatives from the Scott County Attorney’s Office, Scott County Probation, Jacob Wetterling Resource Center and the police department will also be available to address questions from the public. Child care is not available during the meeting.

A fact sheet on Liddell is available on the city website: Notification of Release in Minnesota Fact Sheet [PDF]. The purpose of a community notification is to raise the public’s awareness and provide information regarding predatory offenders.

This is a serious matter, and the Shakopee Police Department is committed to ensuring the public has as much information as possible. We understand this is not news anyone wants to hear, ourselves included. However, these offenders have served the sentence imposed by the court and communities cannot direct where an offender may reside or how he travels through a community.
Level III offenders live throughout the state; our neighboring communities have dealt with them for many years. And while having an offender in your community is undesirable, we would rather have predatory offenders registered and regularly monitored than living in secrecy.

The recent influx of Level III predatory offenders to Shakopee is merely a coincidence after exceptionally unique decades in which no registered Level III offenders chose to reside in our community. Our department and community’s attitude toward welcoming offenders has not changed. By law, offenders have served their sentences and have a right to live where they choose – oftentimes returning to where they resided before incarceration or moving in with family and friends.

The Shakopee Police Department is working closely with the Shakopee School District, along with numerous other agencies to coordinate these notification efforts. Moreover, each school will be provided a copy of Liddell’s fact sheet, as well as daycare providers and neighboring law enforcement agencies.

We will do everything we can to keep our community safe and ensure the public has as much information as possible. We have set up a web page with additional information about predatory offenders at www.ShakopeeMN.gov/police/predatoryoffenders.

Lastly, the Shakopee Police Department is second to none when it comes to staff training on issues related to predatory offenders. We are the only department in the state of Minnesota certified by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s Readiness Project.

This press release was produced by the City of Shakopee. The views expressed here are the author's own.