MPR: Katie's Law

Katie's Law
by Michael Khoo
January 19, 2000

Local law enforcement officials say they often find themselves cash-strapped when required to conduct a large-scale, high-profile investigation. Today, U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone announced he'll introduce federal legislation known as "Katie's Law." Named after Katie Poirier, the bill would create an emergency fund available to rural law enforcement agencies engaged in major criminal investigations.

THE KIDNAPPING last summer of Katie Poirier grabbed headlines across the state. The 19-year-old was abducted from a Moose Lake convenience store where she worked. Carlton County Sheriff Dave Seboe says he learned of the disappearance just as he completed work on a previous murder case.

Seboe: When that happened, I cancelled all the vacations for all of my staff. And they worked half a summer with no vacations. If they were not working shifts, they worked on Katie Poirier case. There was no vacation and there was no time off. We are seeing some of the result of that now. You can't work people like that and expect them to be healthful, both alert mentally and physically. You can't do that. But we did it.

Seboe received assistance from the FBI and the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. The investigation eventually lead to the arrest of Donald Blom, who was recently sentenced to 19 years in prison on a federal firearms charge. But the investigation also led to enormous overruns in Seboe's budget. To ease the burden on future investigations, U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone wants to set aside $10 million a year in federal money. Local law enforcement agencies facing unexpected burdens could tap into the funds for assistance. Wellstone says financial concerns shouldn't overshadow an urgent criminal investigation.

Wellstone: The point is that you put the metal to the pedal right away. You don't have to worry. You don't have to start thinking about, "Lord, what's the bill going to be?" The incentive should be to go all-out, especially in that first, critical 72 hours. And if that means additional people are hired, that's part of it.

Pam Poirier is Katie's mother. She welcomed the Wellstone proposal.

Money shouldn't be an issue here. I need to find my child. And I guess I didn't realize how big of an issue it is in the rural community. I always think that it's going to be there. It's not going to happen to us. You know, it's not going to happen to me. I'm not going to win the lottery. Well, guess what? I had the flip side of that ticket.

Wellstone's bill would provide another $20 million each year to modernize computer systems in rural law-enforcement offices. Todd Jones is the U.S. Attorney for Minnesota. He says the FBI has an extensive, computerized database containing the fingerprints of convicted criminals. But not everyone has access.

Jones: The problem is getting the other end of that database, making it available for, particularly, rural counties in this country, in this state, because it is a pricey proposition. And when the sheriffs and chiefs sitting around this table have to make budget decisions like a lot of law-enforcement agencies do, they have some hard choices to make.

Sheriff Seboe says it's unlikely such legislation could have altered the outcome in the Poirier case, but he says he supports the proposal nonetheless.

Seboe: None of the people I know are going to stop an investigation because they ran out of money. They're not going to do that. But when you do take the money out of general revenue, you take it from somewhere else. You may take it from human services or you may take it from the library fund, but you took it from somewhere. Other services are going to suffer. Roads won't get plowed. Is that what you want? You know, those kinds of things are going to happen.

Seboe also says the technology upgrades wouldn't have saved Katie Poirier. But he says they might have accelerated the pace of the investigation and provided a swifter resolution.

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