Comments on Worthington ? (Albert Lea, Willmar, Northfield: crime, neighborhood, schools)

[elroar]

Worthington, MN is about 11,000 in pop. with a large school system. We are one hour from Sioux Falls on Interstate 90.

I live in Brewster, which is 6 miles NE of Worthington on Hwy 60. There are five homes for sale in our community. Homes in our community would be 1/3 or 1/2 more in Worthington. Homes: one for $99,000 five bedroom with double garage; another for 75,000 red stucco with French doors and double garage; another for 79,000 or 80,000 aprox. double garage; still another remodeled home for about 82,000. It's unusual to have that many homes up for sale in our community. These people who owned them either bought different or moved away. The job market right now seems to be holding its own. HWY 60 is a double lane hwy in both directions.

I'm a teacher in the Brewster School system. We have about 150 students. The high school is in Round Lake, about 10 miles south.

Check Johnson Builders for information on the homes for sale.

[MattSather]

Panda House

[WannaBeinBoston]

Originally Posted by golfgal

El Azteca has GREAT food!

Something heated from a frozen dinner is better than the crap from El Azteca

[marmac]

I believe Worthington was on tv for a raid at a packing plant over illegals and identity theft.
It is a fact of life -------any where in the US----- that if you have a packing plant (or poultry processing plant) there will be a hispanic population in porportion to the size of the plant.
Those plants will employ both legal hispanics and illegal hispanics.

Since the poster had listed this as part of her criteria for moving there, I answered as honestly as I could.

[worthingtonhighschooler]

We were on TV. And it wasn't so much an issue of identity theft. It was mainly hundreds and hundreds of illegals without papers. It was acctually a sad day. They came in without warning and started to send people away on buses. The children of these people were in school and had how idea what was going on until they went home and found notes that said " If your parents aren't home call this number" children stayed nights at churches and kids had no idea where theyre parents were or if they were even coming home. The next day at school was so sad. Everyone was crying. I was a 7th grader at the time. Its really too bad that it happend, I have a few friends that I haven't seen since before the raid. for the next couple months everything in town was slow and the hispanics seemed to be in hiding. Streets weren't busy, wal-mart was empty. It was crazy.

[mgrjenny]

I aint racist by all means, but I live 20 mins from worthington and have to go there to shop at walmart, and hate being the minority in the store, gangs of hispanics all over and they come to my town to date our kids, I hate it...I am moving away soon, what are u looking for to do for work, fairmont s a great town with 6 lakes, cheap living, very nice people and schools, population 11,000 and just got a brand new walmart, plus kmart and shopko, jcpenneys etc. I miss it, I lived there for 13 yrs and loved it, never much for crime or issues with gangs or very many hispanics...

[Omaha Rocks]

I lived in Worthington for nearly 20 years, and couldn't be happier about the fact that we moved away. There are just so many things wrong and backwards, and on so many levels.

And by the way, it was not my experience that the minorities were the source of the problems there.

[Beenaroundabit]

We were on TV. And it wasn't so much an issue of identity theft. It was mainly hundreds and hundreds of illegals without papers. It was acctually a sad day. They came in without warning and started to send people away on buses. The children of these people were in school and had how idea what was going on until they went home and found notes that said " If your parents aren't home call this number" children stayed nights at churches and kids had no idea where theyre parents were or if they were even coming home. The next day at school was so sad. Everyone was crying. I was a 7th grader at the time. Its really too bad that it happend, I have a few friends that I haven't seen since before the raid. for the next couple months everything in town was slow and the hispanics seemed to be in hiding. Streets weren't busy, wal-mart was empty. It was crazy.

I used to cover this area as a law enforcement offcer the last time I was stationed in MN, circa 1997-2000. I worked very closely with what used to be the Immigration and Naturalization Service and participated in several of these worksite enforcement operations around the state, including several in Worthington.

This was never an issue of people simply being "without papers." It was an issue involving the fact that 99.9% of the illegal immigrant workers there were employed using a fake social security card, and fully half of those "fake" cards actually had valid numbers that belonged to someone else - you, me, or any other U.S. citizen. This happens every day and is not an innocent or victimless crime.

I also used to work with several of the Worthington PD detectives on ID theft crimes and testified in court out there regarding many of these illegal immigrant cases; not only were they using other people's SSN's to work, but they were using them to run up credit, collecting welfare and public assistance while working (welfare fraud) and engaging in any other type of crime relating to a fake identity than can be imagined.

And this was back then, in a GOOD economy and BEFORE the illegal gangs like MS-13 were powerful enough to have their hand in just about every type of illegal immigrant activity involving hispanics. I can only imagine what it's like now.

Many small communities in the Midwest that have any kind of agricultural or meat-processing facility will often involve illegal immigration on some level. You just have to do the research and figure out whether it's 1) simply a small facet of a "diverse" community that, despite being against the law, really doesn't really hurt anyone (which was often the case) or 2) if it's out of control.

Back when I last visited Worthington, I wouldn't have called it "out of control" because like I said, the gangs weren't there in force yet. But it was definitely a growing problem that the local PD was struggling with. One detetctive I worked with quite a bit grew up there and described Worthington as a small town whose population had almost doubled overnight with people who didn't speak English. That will present problems for anyone living there.

Again, do the research first. If possible, visit the area first and see what's going on. Don't just get statistics from a website. Talk to people, look and observe, maybe even talk to some officers who work there and see what they think. Most communities newspapers have a listing or blog of crimes/police activities for the previous day/evening; get a few months' worth of those and see what's common. These are all things I would do before I buy a home somewhere, anyway.

[mfarley90]

I have lived in Worthington for almost 2 years now. It is a hard town to settle in. If you don't know somebody that can show you around and let you know what people is dangerous. You almost HAVEto be bilingual to make anything over minimum wage. My boyfriend and I (both caucasion) went to the walmart in town and actually got made fun of by some kids because we couldn't speak Spanish, and the sad part is that there parents were watching them do it. Crime rate is high. I have had the tires on my car slashed numerous times. The first week I moved into my new house my mail box got smashed with a baseball bat. My sister(who also lives in worthington) has had her house broken into numerous times, also had a "drive by" done to her house because she kicked some people out of her party that were trying to start fights. I only live here because I basically have to. I would not recommend moving here unless your planning on gettin mugged, robbed, or trafficing drugs.

[mfarley90]

Oh since your talking about the shooting in the trailor court..why dont we talk about the Hispanic man that raped and murdered his 2 year old neice and then blamed it on her 5 year old brother...And for walking down the street at 3 in the morning. That is true, depending on where your walking. There is about 10% of the town that is safe to walk around day or night, and thats only because your in the rich part of town and every body has survailence. Worthington is a unsafe and worthless town, I have a right to say it because I'm from here. It's only ok if you have the money to protect yourself from the phyco drug lord gang bangers that think they can roam the street. They think there so gangster in MN? Let see how gangster they are when they are in the ghetto of Chicago or Houston.