Murderapolis (murder + Minneapolis)

The city of Minneapolis (MN) was dubbed “Murderapolis” (murder + Minneapolis) by some in the 1990s after an increase in crime. Mark Koscielski, a gun shop owner, sued Minneapolis for its citywide moratorium on new or expanded gun stores. In 1995, Koscielski sold black T-shirts that read “Murderapolis.” “Murderapolis 2005” T-shirts, with a drawing of the grim reaper in front of the Minneapolis skyline, were issued ten years later.
 
The “Murderapolis” nickname has not been trademarked and has been infrequently used after 2005.
 
   
Wikipedia: Minneapolis
Minneapolis (/ˌmɪniˈæpəlɪs/) is the county seat of Hennepin County, and larger of the Twin Cities, the 14th-largest metropolitan area in the United States, containing approximately 4.1 million residents. As of 2016, Minneapolis is the largest city in the state of Minnesota and 46th-largest in the United States with 407,207 residents. Minneapolis and Saint Paul anchor the second-largest economic center in the Midwest, behind Chicago.
 
Minneapolis lies on both banks of the Mississippi River, just north of the river’s confluence with the Minnesota River, and adjoins Saint Paul, the state’s capital. The city is abundantly rich in water, with twenty lakes and wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls, many connected by parkways in the Chain of Lakes and the Grand Rounds National Scenic Byway. It was once the world’s flour milling capital and a hub for timber, and today is the primary business center between Chicago and Seattle, with Minneapolis proper containing America’s fifth-highest concentration of Fortune 500 companies. As an integral link to the global economy, Minneapolis is categorized as a global city.
     
7 September 1995, Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN), “Gun shop owner fights to keep doors open; He may sue Minneapolis over moratorium” by kevin Diaz, Pg. 1A:
The pistol on Mark Koscielski’s waistband, the bars on the door and the alarm system have become standard equipment at his gun store and others in many large U.S. cities.
 
But these days, the people who seem to be gunning for Koscielski are not hoodlums or gangsters but Minneapolis public officials, who are intent on closing his shop at 48th St. and Chicago Av. S., the city’s last store devoted exclusively to guns and gun paraphernalia.

The showdown, which began with a citywide moratorium on new or expanded gun stores this past March, is turning into a full-blown legal battle, with Koscielski’s lawyers preparing to file a suit in federal court, accusing a host of elected officials of violating due-process and equal-protection guarantees. The city, which has no authority to license firearm dealers, is trying to limit the location of federally licensed firearms dealers via new zoning codes to keep them out of residential areas.
(...)
“It’s simply the city enforcing its zoning code,” Mead said. She said one reason the waiver was denied was that Koscielski didn’t document the hardship to his business that otherwise would result from the moratorium, a reason for which a waiver may be granted.
 
Koscielski arrived at the waiver hearing wearing a black T-shirt that read “Murderapolis” over a drawing of the Grim Reaper stalking the city skyline, with “City of Wakes” underneath. He said he’s printed 300 of the shirts and is selling them for $10 each to meet legal expenses that he said already amount to tens of thousands of dollars. He said he’s sold more than 250, including about 150 to police officers.
 
25 November 1995, Washington (DC) Post, “Murderous Toll in an Unlikely City: Minneapolis Police Attribute Body Count to Handguns and Drugs” by Jon Jeter, pg. A3, col. 1:
MINNEAPOLIS—In September, the local coroner asked county commissioners for more money. Seems his office was running out of body bags.
 
At Koscielski’s Guns and Ammo, handgun sales this year have been brisk, but no match for the more than 2,000 T-shirts the store has sold since the city eclipsed its previous record for murders three months ago, the store owner said. More cartoonish than sinister, the black shirts bear the image of a Grim Reaper-like character hovering over Minneapolis’s distinctive skyline, blood dripping from a caption that reads: “Murderapolis; City of Wakes 1995.”
 
Urban Dictionary
Murderapolis
Another name for Minneapolis. Coined by the media a few years back when Minneapolis’ homicides were at an all-time high.
Murderapolis is full of gangsters, hustlers, dealers, and pimps.
by 612 Thug May 04, 2003
   
Free Repubic
Gun shop owner selling provocative T-shirts again
Rochelle Olson, Star Tribune
March 23, 2005
Minneapolis gun shop owner Mark Koscielski coined the city’s notorious sobriquet “Murderapolis” in 1995 and renewed the term to sell new T-shirts Tuesday.
 
The black $15 T-shirts say “Murderapolis 2005” above a drawing of the grim reaper in front of the city’s skyline. On the bottom, white letters read, “I’m back.”
 
Koscielski said he’ll keep the $6.75 profit from each shirt for the children’s gun safety courses he offers for free, the next of which is in May.
 
“We teach our kids how to drive a car, we teach them the bad things about drugs and drinking,” Koscielski said at his shop at 2926 Chicago Av. S. “If this saves one life, it’s worth it.”
 
Power Line
POSTED ON JULY 21, 2005 BY SCOTT JOHNSON
MURDERAPOLIS: ETYMOLOGY AND BLAME
In my Daily Standard column “Return to Murderapolis,” I attributed the origin of the term “Murderapolis” to the New York Times. Joel Rosenberg writes to correct me:
 
With regard to Scott Johnson’s excellent Daily Standard column, a correction is in order, I think: the “Murderapolis” term was coined by Mark Koscielski, owner/proprietor of Koscielski’s Guns and Ammo, which the city of Minneapolis is trying to put out of business. It was subsequently picked up by, among others, the NYTimes, and Mark was previously and subsequently picked on by the city of Minneapolis. He’s not much loved by the officials of our city, as he’s a definite gadfly. (Full disclosure: he’s a friend of mine, and I do most of my carry classes at his gunshop. I was around when he did his first run of Murderapolis stuff, well before the term was picked up by anybody else. )
For more on the gunshop, see http://www.livejournal.com/users/joelrosenberg/135458.html , http://www.livejournal.com/users/joelrosenberg/137359.html and Mark’s own website at http://www.savethegunshop.com, where, once again, he’s selling Murderapolis T-shirts and coffee mugs.
     
Urban Dictionary
Murderapolis
The nickname given to the city of Minneapolis Minnesota back in like 96 when there was this big ass crime wave sweepin the 612.
 
Cops eventually employed a whole buncha new gang units and shit to crack down on it and the city was relatively peaceful for a while.
 
But since 2005 crime rates in Minneapolis have been slowly climbing up higher and higher and police fear that Murder-Ap might be back…
Police fear that the days of Murderapolis might be comin back…
by Murder-Ap! September 15, 2006