Locally, Jewish community centers in St. Paul and St. Louis Park were evacuated and temporarily shut down after bomb threats earlier this year.
“I have never seen anything quite like the environment we are currently operating in,” said Laurence Lon White, a security expert who was recently hired as chief council for security at Sabes Jewish Community Center in St. Louis Park, which was evacuated after a bomb threat in January.
White was testifying in support of a bill presented Tuesday to the Minnesota House’s public safety committee.
The bill asks for an unspecified appropriation to fund grants, up to $75,000, to tighten security at such institutions. It does not specify what types of organizations could apply — they could be Jewish, or not — only that they be nonprofits that have been vetted at the federal level as being at risk.
The bill piggybacks on a federal program in which nonprofits apply to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for similar security grants. Those applications have to, in turn, be approved by the Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.
In Minnesota, “no additional application would be required” for the state funding, the bill states. In other words, an application to the feds would equate to an application to the state for funding, to supplement any federal aid.
Proponents of the bill said they were worried that Minnesota nonprofits would be sidelined in favor of nonprofits in larger metro areas such as New York or Chicago.
Thus far, one person — a disgraced former journalist who allegedly was attempting to smear an estranged girlfriend — has been arrested by the FBI for making such threats.
But none of the threats made by the suspect, Juan Thompson of Missouri, were made against Minnesota institutions, according to the complaint against him. All in all, Thompson made eight of the estimated 150 or so bomb threats reported nationwide.
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