More than a month after Zalaen Stone’s mountain bike was stolen from outside the Rondo Community Library, St. Paul police officers provided the 13-year-old with a new bike earlier this week.

Sgt. Candice Jones investigated the May 29 theft. Video footage outside the library’s main entrance on Dale Street showed a middle-age, female suspect, who was identified and later charged. Zalaen’s bike, however, was not recovered.

After the theft, Summer Stone, Zalaen’s mother, met Jones, Sgt. Jason Bain and officers Charles Busch and Matt Brodin at the Police Department’s Western District office.

Although Zalaen was unable to pick out the new bike himself, his mother helped the officers decide and brought it — along with a new helmet — home to surprise him.

“I was just about to buy him a bike when the lady called,” Summer said. “It’s really cool they did this for him.”

Through the Bike Cops for Kids program, officers provided six options at Framed Bikes in Little Canada.

“That’s what the program is for,” Bain said of the help provided to Zalaen. “If they’re doing everything right and something bad happens.”

St. Paul’s Bike Cops for Kids program was launched several years ago with the aim of distributing bike helmets to young bicyclists to improve safety. It’s modeled after a Minneapolis initiative started in 2009.

Stifled sobs echoed off the walls Thursday morning inside Courtroom 3 at the St. Croix County Courthouse as Judge Scott Needham read aloud the jury’s verdict stating Kayle Alan Fleischauer, the New Richmond man on trial for killing his 19-year-old son, was guilty of second-degree reckless homicide.

The 43-year-old sat still, staring forward as the verdict was read and was taken into custody at the end of the proceedings.

Defense attorney Earl Gray argued his client should remain free on bond pending sentencing, saying Fleischauer was not a risk to flee since it was his mother’s money put up for bail.

Needham said bond hinges on presumption of innocence and a guilty verdict revoked that presumption.

The second-degree reckless homicide charge is punishable by up to 25 years in prison and a $100,000 fine. The maximum sentence allows for up to 15 years in prison and 10 years on extended supervision.

“We are extremely pleased with the jury’s verdict,” Assistant St. Croix County District Attorney Erica Ellenwood said after court was adjourned.

Shortly after 4 a.m. April 14, 2018, authorities received the call of a male with a gunshot wound to the head. They arrived at the rural New Richmond residence to find Chase Alan Fleischauer, a graduate of Tartan High School in Oakdale, unresponsive on the floor of the upper level.

His sister Somer Johnson-Fleischauer was the trial first witness on Monday.

“I could hear yelling and movement upstairs,” Johnson-Fleischauer said of the early morning hours of April 14, 2018. She described a verbal exchange between her father and brother, saying she heard her brother say he would never hit his father.

Kayle Fleischauer testified he went downstairs with his 19-year-old son and wrestled on the tile floor before returning upstairs and then going to bed.

But Wisconsin Assistant Attorney General Robert Kaiser Jr. pointed to a video taken of the home the morning of the incident that he said showed no signs of any wrestling match downstairs.

Kayle Fleischauer also said he noticed no injuries on his son before he went to bed sometime between 2:30 and 3 a.m., but blood was found on the bottom of Chase Fleischauer’s socks indicating he stood or walked on blood already on the floor. Prosecutors said tests revealed it was his own blood on the socks.

According to Dr. Kelly Mills with the Ramsey County Medical Examiner’s Office and her boss, Ramsey County Chief Medical Examiner Michael McGee, Chase Fleischauer would not have been able to move after he sustained the gunshot to the head.

Gray argued that alcohol can mask pain and maintained injuries, which may have bled, were caused during a wrestling match.

Initial charging documents stated the gun was fired approximately 18 inches from Chase Fleischauer’s head.

Throughout the trial, Gray raised questions as to the validity of the state’s case. He focused on inconsistencies between St. Croix County sheriff’s office investigator Jim Mikla’s claim in his report of the gun’s distance from Chase Fleischauer’s head and matching results from test-fire patterns.

Evidence stated subsequent test firings were done at 3, 6 and 9 inches.

“What happened to the 18 inches?” Gray said during closing arguments.

Gray argued Mikla knew a distance of 18 inches would eliminate the possibility of a self-inflicted wound.

“So he’s making it up,” Gray told the jury.

Mills, who performed the autopsy, said test firing results from 6 inches most closely resembled the gunpowder stippling pattern on Chase Fleischauer’s head, but the lack of soot found in the wound more closely resembled the test from 9 inches.

John Larsen, former FBI agent and founder of Larsen Forensics & Associates — a company that specializes in reconstruction of shooting incidents — testified for the defense that according to his own tests and review of case materials, the gun was 3 to 5 inches from Chase Fleischauer’s head when fired.

Larsen posited the pistol was near the 19-year-old’s head and he either purposefully or accidentally shot himself.

Larsen did not offer an explanation as to how the gun made its way more than 10 feet away from Chase Fleischauer’s body.

“I have no clue,” he testified.

Ellenwood said during a closing rebuttal that the gun usually falls at the feet of self-inflicted gunshot victims.

Mills, in her autopsy report, also noted a skull fracture and petechiae — small dots on the skin caused from bleeding capillaries that can be a sign of strangulation — preceded the gunshot that killed Chase Fleischauer.

As to why Kayle Fleischauer would have shot his son, Ellenwood told the jury that was irrelevant.

“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “We don’t have to give you motive.”

St. Paul’s police chief fired five officers Thursday after an investigation determined they did not intervene when a man assaulted a patron outside an East Side bar and restaurant.

The assault last June involved Tou Mo Cha, a former St. Paul police officer, according to a Police Department source.

Cha resigned as a police officer 14 years ago after he was accused of lending his department-issued handgun. Someone then used the gun to shoot into a restaurant and a house.

Last December, Ramsey County prosecutors charged Cha with assault, saying he seriously injured a man outside a Payne-Phalen bar and restaurant, Eastside Checkerboard Pizza, in June 2018. Cha’s wife owns the business and he helps run it. He has pleaded not guilty.

On Thursday, Police Chief Todd Axtell said the five officers responded to an incident and “while they were there, an individual assaulted others and officers did not intervene.”

Axtell did not say that the case involved Cha. He said state law limits him from providing details about what happened because the internal affairs investigation remains open.

“Officers are expected to intervene when criminal acts occur in their presence,” Axtell said as he announced the terminations at an afternoon news conference. “Officers are expected to protect the vulnerable and officers are expected — I demand — that officers tell the truth.

“When officers fail to live up to these standards, it affects everyone who wears the badge … and that’s why I’ve taken this action,” Axtell continued. “This community deserves to know that its St. Paul police officers will always do the right thing and will always tell the truth.”

The Police Department did not release the officers’ names, but the Pioneer Press determined through various documents and sources that they are Nicholas Grundei, Robert Luna, Christopher Rhoades, Nathan Smith and Jordan Wild.

RELATED: 5 St. Paul police officers fired: Who are they?

St. Paul police union officials said they will contest the firings.

“The termination of five cops is unprecedented and absolutely outrageous in our mind,” said Paul Kuntz, president of the St. Paul Police Federation. “… We will fight this as far as we can and with everything we have.”

INVESTIGATION SHOWS ‘VIOLATION OF TRUST’

The Police Department conducted an internal affairs investigation, and Axtell said he “learned of a violation of trust, deceit and significant policy violations.”

There is video footage of the assault, Axtell said.

After the Police Civilian Internal Affairs Review Commission issued recommendations last week in the case, Axtell met with the five officers on Thursday morning and made his decision to terminate them.

“While the vast majority of our officers meet and exceed these standards every day, the trust we place in them demands accountability for actions that fall below our high expectations,” Carter said.

In his 30 years as a St. Paul police officer, Axtell did not recall another time when multiple officers were fired in the same incident. He described it as “a huge withdrawal from our bank of trust.”

“My ongoing pledge to you, our community, is to move forward from this ugly day in our department’s history and once again, get back to making deposits into a fully funded bank of trust,” Axtell said.

More information about the case from last June will become available if the officers’ firings are upheld or other discipline is finalized.

At the news conference. Axtell delivered a message to the community: “I’m sorry. This should never have happened. I will always be transparent, accountable and honest with you, in good times and in bad times, and especially when the news is disappointing.”

And Axtell also publicly addressed the department’s officers: “I know that you have difficult jobs. … I will not let the actions of a few tarnish and stain the uniform that you’ve earned to wear. … As long as your actions are reasonable, necessary and done with respect, I will always, always have your back.”

Since Axtell became police chief three years, he fired one other officer — Brett Palkowitsch, who kicked Frank Baker when he was being bitten by a police dog. A state arbitrator, however, ruled that Palkowitsch should get his job back.

A federal grand jury indicted Palkowitsch in January and alleged he used excessive force in the Baker case. He has pleaded not guilty.

CHARGE: BAR WORKER HIT MAN IN HEAD WITH BATON

Last June 17, there was a gathering of family members at Checkerboard Pizza at Arcade Street and Jenks Avenue and a fight broke out. Police dispersed the crowd, according to the December criminal complaint charging Tou Mo Cha, 50, with felony assault.

“One of the responding squad cars left the immediate area but parked, with its lights off, across the street,” the complaint said. “Another fight broke out and, as the squad car approached the crowd, the video recording system in the squad car captured a male down on all fours.”

One male was using his fists to hit the man on the ground. Another man, later identified as Cha, “swung a baton over his head and brought the baton down on (the man), who was completely defenseless,” the complaint continued.

“Apparently noticing the approaching squad car, Tou Cha and the other male moved away, as members of the crowd moved in to help” the injured man, according to the complaint.

The man was taken to the hospital and treated for a concussion. He went to police headquarters three days later to provide information about the assault, according to a police report dated June 20.

The man sustained two “significant” cuts to his head from separate blows — one required seven staples to close and the other 17 staples, the complaint said. He reported that he was on the sidewalk when Cha pepper-sprayed him, and then struck him with a baton.

When police interviewed Cha, he told an investigator he intended to hit someone with a baton, but accidentally knocked a bouncer into the street instead.

“The (surveillance) video he showed the investigator documented that, but did not show the area where (the man) was struck,” the complaint said. “Cha said the camera in that area didn’t work.”

A pretrial hearing in the case is scheduled for next month. Cha intends to use a claim of self-defense or defense of others, according to a court filing by his attorney, Jack Rice.

Rice said he doesn’t know whether the internal affairs investigation will affect Cha’s case.

While the December criminal complaint in the case describes police activity at the scene of the fight, it wasn’t clear Thursday how that fit in with the five officers’ inaction alleged by Axtell. It also wasn’t clear when the investigation that led to the charges against Cha originated.

FORMER OFFICER NOW WORKS AT WIFE’S BAR

When Cha was a St. Paul police officer, he was charged in 2004 with lending his department-issued handgun. The gun was used in a pair of drive-by shootings that targeted members of the Hmong community. No one was injured.

Cha pleaded guilty to making terroristic threats in 2005 and resigned from the police force.

In recent years, police have received reports about Eastside Checkerboard Pizza, which Cha’s wife owns and he helps operate.

In 2014, 34-year-old Nicholas James Keilen died a couple of months after he said bouncers assaulted him outside the bar and restaurant, also known as Checkerbar Food & Liquor. The Ramsey County medical examiner’s office ruled the manner of Keilen’s death as undetermined, and no one was arrested or charged.

Other men told police in 2011 and 2014 that security guards assaulted them. And in 2013, a group of people reported to police that Cha had pepper-sprayed them. No bar employees were charged in those cases.

Neither Cha nor his wife could be reached for comment Thursday.

Jasmine Johnson contributed to this report.

Washington County officials are warning residents to remove personal items from their cars after burglars this week used garage-door openers left in unlocked vehicles to gain access to several houses in Hugo.

Two cars were stolen and at least one home was broken into in Hugo, said Cmdr. Cheri Dexter of the Washington County Sheriff’s Office.

“Remove the keys, garage door openers and personal items from your cars,” Dexter said. “Lock all the doors in your home, including the service door from your garage into your home.”

Anyone who spots suspicious activity is asked to call 651-439-9381.

Relatives of a 3-year-old St. Paul boy who died after his mother’s boyfriend severely beat him last  winter had one question when they faced him in court Thursday afternoon.

“My question is why?” Accia Parker asked Alontae Butts, 25, during his sentencing hearing in Ramsey County District Court.

“Why didn’t you just say something … if it was too much,” Parker continued, crying. “Why would you take it out on the children? They were harmless.”

Her comments came shortly before Judge Robyn Millenacker sentenced Butts to 15 years in prison on one count of second-degree murder in Levi Gardet’s death.

Butts also was convicted of malicious punishment of a child for life-threatening injuries he inflicted on Levi’s 2-year-sister.

In addition to Levi and his sister, Butts frequently cared for their 6-year-old sibling while their mother worked double shifts at McDonald’s to support her family and help Butts get back on his feet, Parker said.

She added that her family had known Butts since he was a child.

Parker is the children’s grandmother. Their mother, Feleica Alpine, also spoke during the hearing.

Butts declined to say anything. He entered an Alford plea in the case last month, meaning he acknowledged that the state likely had enough evidence to convict him if his case went to trial while still asserting his innocence.

His attorney, Connie Iversen, said Butts made the plea partly to help Alpine regain custody of her two remaining children, both of whom were removed from her care by the state following Levi’s death.

“He wants the court to know that he did love those children and he took care of them to the best of his ability,” Iversen said.

Millenacker noted otherwise, reminding the court of the facts of what she described as a “sad” and “stunning” case.

Butts sometimes choked the children to make them fall asleep, for example. He also punched them in the face when he was frustrated with them, according to remarks from the 6-year-old after Levi’s death.

The 6-year-old said Butts acted that way when the kids “were bad” or “wouldn’t stop crying.”

On Jan. 15, paramedics responded to the home where the children lived on Carroll Avenue after a report of an unresponsive child.

They found Levi in cardiac arrest with bruises on his face and abdomen and took him by ambulance to Children’s Hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly thereafter.

Alpine told authorities she left the children with Butts that day while she went to work. When she got home late that evening, Levi was complaining of intense stomach pains and had a mark on his face.

Butts told her the child had hit himself with a cellphone chord.

When his mother went to check on him early that morning, he was unresponsive.

Doctors discovered Levi suffered multiple traumatic injuries, including a tear to his small intestine and hemorrhages to his liver and diaphragm.

His siblings also were evaluated, and doctors found a tear in the 2-year-old’s liver that likely would have killed her without early intervention.

Alpine cried at the sentencing hearing Thursday as she described what her life has been like since Levi’s death. She said she’s working hard to get her other two children back.

“I just don’t understand why,” she cried. “It just really, really hurt … I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.”

She also read a letter that her 6-year-old wrote.

In it, the child said Butts was “always mean” and “never nice” when he took care of them and asked the judge to send him to jail.

Before sending him out of the courtroom, Millacker told Butts that he was wise to take the plea deal offered to him by the state, noting that otherwise he would have likely  received a much longer prison sentence.

“I hope you understand, and I think you do, the tremendous suffering and immense loss and grief you have caused,” she said.

A Dakota County judge ruled earlier this week a Farmington man accused of beating his 84-year-old grandmother to death with a hammer in 2015 remains incompetent to stand trial.

Timothy Robert Steele, 40, is accused of killing Agnes Wagner-Steele the night of Oct. 15, 2015, for blowing her nose at the dinner table earlier that night. He was charged with second-degree murder, a felony.

On Wednesday, Timothy Steele was ruled incompetent after a review found he continues to display symptoms of mental illness and does not have the rational ability to take part in court proceedings, according to court records.

WHAT HAPPENED THAT NIGHT

It was about 15 minutes before midnight the night in 2015 when police received a call from a Farmington residence.

Steele told authorities that after his grandmother had blown her nose earlier he was fixated on the taste and feeling of mucus in his mouth, which he blamed her for. He said voices in his head told him the sensation would go away if he killed her.

Steele got a hammer and then entered his grandmother’s room where she had been lying in bed. According to the criminal complaint, he struck her in the head seven to eight times, then left to go buy a pack of cigarettes.

When police arrived, Steele was “calm and collected,” the complaint said. When asked what had happened, he told authorities he had killed his grandmother.

According to the complaint, the voices in his head told Steele he was a “terrible criminal.” He thought about fleeing, but realized he didn’t have anywhere to go.

WHAT’S HAPPENED IN COURT SO FAR

Steele first appeared in court on Oct. 19, 2015, where bail was set at $750,000 without conditions.

Over the past three years, he has undergone regular evaluations and has been found incompetent to stand trial each time, according to court records. His next hearing to review an evaluation is scheduled for June 11, 2020.

Most of the five St. Paul police officers terminated Thursday worked for the city’s Police Department for less than seven years and were only previously disciplined for preventable squad crashes.

Public information in their personnel files and past news articles show:

• Nicholas Grundei became a St. Paul officer in 2015.

His previous discipline was an oral reprimand in 2017 for a squad crash.

He received three “thank you” letters from citizens, and a “thank you” letter and letter of recognition from Police Chief Todd Axtell.

• Robert Luna was a St. Paul parking enforcement officer before he was hired as an officer in 2014.

His parents were both St. Paul police officers. His mother, Colleen Luna, was a finalist to become St. Paul police chief, and was a senior commander who led the homicide unit and internal affairs at different times.

Robert Luna’s previous discipline was an oral reprimand for a squad crash last year.

In 2015, Luna and five other officers hoisted a 2-ton vehicle off a woman who was trapped underneath it.

• Christopher Rhoades, hired by St. Paul police in 2007, was the most veteran officer in the group.

He was among a group of officers who received a written reprimand in 2012 for improperly looking up information in the state driver’s license database.

He was awarded two medals of commendation, both in 2011.

Rhoades’ police partner, Michael Soucheray, was charged in 2017 with punching a 14-year-old girl when she was handcuffed in the back of their squad car, after the girl spit on Soucheray. Soucheray was acquitted of a misdemeanor and later resigned from the police force.

• Nathan Smith became a St. Paul officer in 2012.

He was the subject of an oral reprimand in 2016 for a squad crash.

In January 2016, Smith received the department’s Life-Saving Award. A month earlier, he climbed over the railing of the Earl Street bridge over Phalen Boulevard to hold on to a 15-year-old dangling from the edge. The teen was brought to safety.

• Jordan Wild, a St. Paul officer since 2014, received an oral reprimand in 2017 after a squad crash.

His file shows he received three “thank you” letters, plus a letter of recognition from Axtell.

Last year, Wild and another officer were found legally justified in fatally shooting Phumee Lee in 2017. Lee pointed a gun at officers and fired during the incident in Dayton’s Bluff, according to law enforcement.

APPLETON, Wis. — Two Wisconsin officers were justified when they shot and killed a man who got in a gunfight with police that left a city firefighter dead in the crossfire last month, a prosecutor said Thursday.

Outagamie County District Attorney Melinda Tempelis said that Officer Paul Christensen and Sgt. Christopher Biese won’t face criminal charges.

Christensen and Biese exchanged shots with 47-year-old Ruben Houston of Wausau on May 15 outside of Appleton’s downtown transit center. Christensen was wounded, along with a bystander. Both have been released from the hospital.

Appleton firefighter Mitchell Lundgaard, 36, was shot and died of his injuries at a hospital.

Houston had just arrived at the transit center on a bus. The district attorney said before the shooting take place, Houston was treated with Narcan, a drug used to revive people suffering from a drug overdose, the Post Crescent reported.

“We lost one of our own and officers were forced to make difficult decisions and risked their lives to protect our community,” Tempelis said.

Tempelis described a scene that quickly changed from a routine medical call to a chaotic, dangerous situation with multiple shots being fired by Houston and by officers trying to deal with the threat he posed.

“It is surprising that nobody else got hurt or killed as a result of the gunfire and the behavior of (Houston),” she said.

When the bus arrived in at transit center, a bus passenger believed Houston was having a seizure and called 911 for help. Lundgaard arrived with other firefighters and began providing aid to Houston.

Houston regained consciousness after responders determined he likely had suffered a drug overdose and gave him two doses of Narcan.

Houston told responders he had taken some of his wife’s morphine. Houston got off the bus on his own, even as responders were encouraging him to seek additional medical care, but he refused.

“They wanted to make sure he got that help,” Tempelis said.

Houston drew a small handgun from a small case at his waist, Tempelis said. He stood back and fired twice, hitting Lundgaard in the upper back and Christensen in the upper leg.

Almost simultaneously, Christensen drew his handgun and fired once, striking Houston in the abdomen. Houston ran toward where bystander Brittany Schowalter was and used her as a shield, the district attorney said.

Christensen and Biese both fired multiple times at Houston, also likely striking Schowalter, although Tempelis said it’s impossible to know for sure who shot her. She suffered an injury to her leg and to her head, with a bullet grazing her skull, Tempelis said.

Houston eventually went to the ground, which allowed officers equipped with a ballistic shield to arrest him. The officers found Houston’s gun under him, Tempelis said.

“The actions of our law enforcement in this incident are commendable,” she said.

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Olmsted County sheriff’s officials say they’ve made an arrest in the death of a man found with multiple gunshot wounds along a rural road earlier this year.

The body of 28-year-old Garad Hassan Roble was found by a passing motorist before dawn on March 5. Sheriff Kevin Torgenson said Friday the 23-year-old Rochester man was arrested on a charge of aiding an offender for second-degree murder. He could make a court appearance Friday.

Torgenson says the man is being held at the Goodhue County Adult Detention Center because of “conflicting relationships” with detainees in Olmsted County.

Five St. Paul police officers fired Thursday “have been painted in a false and unfair light,” the president of the officers’ union said Friday.

Paul Kuntz, who heads the St. Paul Police Federation, said Police Chief Todd Axtell gave “an incomplete and false narrative, forcing the media to fill in the blanks.” Axtell announced the terminations during a news conference Thursday.

The union will “defend its members vigorously in the face of this outrageous and unprecedented situation,” Kuntz said.

On Thursday, Axtell said that the five officers responded to an incident last year and “while they were there, an individual assaulted others and officers did not intervene.”

The man who was injured and his brother, who was also reportedly assaulted, are now represented by attorney Andrew Noel.

Noel said Friday that he will be gathering evidence, including police reports and videos, and “looking at various legal avenues to pursue” monetary compensation for them.

EX-OFFICER CHARGED WITH ASSAULT

The assault last June was allegedly perpetrated by Tou Mo Cha, who resigned as a St. Paul police officer 14 years ago after he pleaded guilty to making terroristic threats.

Ramsey County prosecutors charged Cha with felony assault in connection with the incident in December.

He is accused of pepper-spraying and hitting a man in the head with a baton outside Checkerboard Pizza at Arcade Street and Jenks Avenue, a business owned by his wife. Cha, 50, has pleaded not guilty.

Axtell said Thursday there is video footage of the assault.

But Chris Wachtler, an attorney representing the police union, said Friday, “The city’s theory is if you see it on camera, all of the cops must have seen it, and that just isn’t the case.”

OFFICERS DIDN’T IMMEDIATELY WRITE REPORTS

Police officers did not file reports the night of the assault. Officers typically write police reports the day of an incident, though there are circumstances when it can be a day or two later, according to police.

The man assaulted outside Checkerboard Pizza went to St. Paul police headquarters three days later, and an officer filed a report then. Police immediately began investigating the assault, a department spokesman said.

Kuntz said Friday that “the facts of these cases are far, far different from those broadcast by Chief Axtell,” and he said they don’t support termination.

In a Friday statement, Axtell said his administration’s “guiding principles” are “accountability, transparency, trust and honesty.”

“As we have proven time and time again, we do not deviate from them, which is why the untrue allegations made by the Federation are so disappointing,” Axtell said.

TWO OFFICERS STILL BEING PAID

The police department did not release the names of the officers because the internal affairs investigation remains active, but the Pioneer Press determined through various documents and sources that they are Nicholas Grundei, Robert Luna, Christopher Rhoades, Nathan Smith and Jordan Wild.

Grundei, Luna and Smith were no longer on the city’s payroll as of Thursday. Rhoades and Wild were listed as being on paid leave.

Two of the officers are veterans and will be paid while they’re appealing, Wachtler said. They fall under the state’s Veterans’ Preference Act, which allows honorably discharged veterans more due process steps.

Kuntz said he believes police administration confirmed the names of the officers, and he called for “a transparent investigation into who … may have violated state law” by doing so.

In light of Axtell’s news conference Thursday, Kuntz said the five officers “now are deprived of unbiased and genuine due process because of his statements.”

“To try the cases in the court of public opinion at a stage where the officers are unable to defend themselves is such a serious breach of his responsibility as the chief law enforcement officer in this city,” Kuntz said at a brief news conference Friday.

Axtell said in Friday’s statement that he looks “forward to hearing the Federation’s position on this matter once they have taken the initiative to request and review the investigative files.”

OFFICERS HAD BEEN TAKEN OFF PATROL

The five officers were most recently placed in non-patrol assignments.

The internal affairs case was a “lengthy and complicated investigation with a lot of people involved, a lot of interviews,” Axtell said Thursday.

Axtell said he “learned of a violation of trust, deceit and significant policy violations.”

After the Police Civilian Internal Affairs Review Commission issued recommendations last week in the case, Axtell met with the five officers Thursday morning and made his decision to terminate them.

A Minneapolis lawyer convicted of orchestrating a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme through “porno-trolling” was sentenced Friday to 14 years in prison.

Paul Hansmeier, 37, of Woodbury, and his law partner John Steele, an Illinois attorney, pleaded guilty in August to committing mail fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering when they baited internet users with porn movies, some they filmed themselves, in order to sue them for copyright infringement when the user tried to download the movie.

“Today’s sentence for Paul Hansmeier is the just result for an attorney who abused his license to practice law and disgraced himself and the bar in so many ways,” said Jill Sanborn, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Minneapolis office. “Hansmeier’s role in this salacious fraud scheme exploited victims by misusing his position of trust as an officer of the court.”

The scheme began in 2010 when Hansmeier and Steele would threaten copyright lawsuits against people who downloaded pornographic movies from file-sharing websites such as “The Pirate Bay.”

According to court documents, the two lawyers used extortion tactics such as letters and phone calls to threaten the users with enormous financial penalties and public embarrassment unless they agreed to pay a $3,000 settlement fee.

In 2011, the lawyers began trying to cover their tracks, creating “Prenda Law” and other shell companies to pursue their claims and distance themselves from any potential fallout.

In total, Hansmeier and Steele obtained approximately $3 million from the fraudulent copyright lawsuits.

Hansmeier’s sentence included two years of supervised release and he must pay $1.5 million in restitution. He was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis before Judge Joan Ericksen.

Steele is scheduled to be  sentenced on July 9.

There is a new crime scene in the metro area: your front porch.

A rash of mail thefts is breaking out, according to law enforcement officials, fueled by thieves addicted to opioids and methamphetamines.

“These cases are pouring in,” said Washington County Attorney Pete Orput.

Thieves stole mail in Lake Elmo on June 8 from two houses about a half-mile apart, according to the Washington County Sheriff’s Department.

Other reports show thieves taking mail in scattered locations, not in clusters.

They typically grab packages left on doorsteps.

Orput said that when they steal mail, they wash checks with chemicals that remove pen ink. Then they rewrite the checks to themselves.

Or they steal identities by finding documents and account numbers to obtain money or make purchases under an assumed name.

Addicts find mail theft an attractive crime, according to Orput.

“What better job is there for a lazy criminal than to steal mail? You don’t even have to get out of your car,” he said. “People have always trusted the mail. But now, I don’t know if you can.”

RECENT CASE ILLUSTRATES TYPICAL THEFT

One case illustrates how identity thieves work.

According to the criminal complaint released last week, Woodbury Police stopped a car driven by Jennifer Balfanz, 28, of Minneapolis on Nov. 9, 2017.

Police were responding to reports of “an attractive white female, medium build, with hair in a ponytail driving a dark green old-model Audi.” She was reported driving on Silverwood Road, pausing to open mailboxes.

The arresting officer said he noted “stacks of mail” in her back seat — from 80 individuals in 10 cities.

Among the piles were checks that had been cleaned of ink and re-written to Balfanz, according to the complaint. Dozens of envelopes contained mortgage documents, vehicle registration materials and insurance forms with ID numbers.

Balfanz allegedly stole the identities of 11 people and forged checks totaling $35,000. The complaint notes that Balfanz was arrested again Jan. 4, 2019, “under similar circumstances,” and a trial has been scheduled for October.

STEALING PACKAGES FROM HOMES IN WOODBURY

Another case shows how front-porch deliveries are being stolen.

According to a criminal complaint, Samantha Jo Nygaard, 32, of Hastings was charged with stealing packages from four homes in Woodbury between October and December 2018.

She also was charged with shoplifting clothing from a JCPenney retail store and pillows from a Walmart store. She drove three different cars during the crimes.

When she was finally arrested in January, the complaint said, she admitted smoking methamphetamines that morning. A plastic bag containing meth was found in her vehicle. Nygaard is scheduled to go to trial in December.

County attorney Orput said that residents should watch for unfamiliar cars cruising down their streets or stopping at mailboxes.

Orput believes that the thefts are so easy to commit that the best way to stop them is to help rehabilitate the addicts.

He is working with Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation and other treatment centers and has organized meetings with sheriffs’ departments and other agencies.

“The only way,” he said, “is to get thieves treated.”

Nationally ranked University of Minnesota heavyweight wrestler Gable Steveson and a teammate have been arrested on suspicion of criminal sexual conduct.

KARE-TV reported that the two men arrested were on the wrestling team. They have not been charged.

Steveson, an Apple Valley native, and Dylan Martinez were arrested Saturday night at different times and places in Minneapolis. Authorities have not released details.

Steveson was a four-time state champion at Apple Valley High School. In his freshman season with the Gophers, he went 35-2 at 285 pounds, placing second at the Big Ten tournament and third at the NCAA Championships.

Martinez was a transfer from Fresno City College.

“We are aware of a situation involving two of our student athletes and are in the process of gathering more information,” University of Minnesota Athletics said in a statement. “These students have been suspended from all team activity pending further information. Federal and state law precludes any further details at this time.”

As of Monday morning, Steveson and Martinez had not yet been charged. Police are still investigating the case, and will then turn over their findings to the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office. The attorney’s office has until noon Tuesday to decide whether they will charge the two men.

The two men are still in custody, as of Monday afternoon.

UPDATE: Gable Steveson cooperating with criminal sexual conduct investigation, attorney says

Steveson posted 35 wins and two losses at heavyweight in his freshman season with the Gophers, including a 17-0 mark in dual meets.

He entered the NCAA championships as the No. 3-ranked heavyweight in the nation, according to InterMat, and placed third at the NCAA meet. Both of his losses were to eventual NCAA champion Anthony Cassar of Penn State.

Steveson was the youngest freestyle wrestler at this month’s Final X tournament in Piscataway, N.J., and came up just short of earning a berth in the world championships in Kazakhstan.

Martinez was a redshirt sophomore who did not wrestle for the Gophers in the 2018-19 season. He was a two-time California community college champion at Fresno (California) City College.

Besides criminal charges, the students may be found in violation of the U’s student code of conduct, which was updated in 2018.

A spokesperson for the U’s athletics department wouldn’t comment further on the case, but did say said the U’s procedures for disciplining athletes are outlined in the student-athlete code of conduct, which is an additional policy to the student code of conduct.

Editor’s note:This article has been edited to correct a source of information. KARE originally reported that the U of M confirmed the men were wrestlers. The U did not share that information, it came from other sources.

A star wrestler for the University of Minnesota is shocked by his arrest on sexual misconduct charges, as he has nothing to hide and has been cooperating with investigators, his lawyer said Monday.

Gable Steveson, 19, and teammate Dylan Martinez, 21, were arrested Saturday night on suspicion of criminal sexual conduct charges and remained jailed Monday.

Steveson, a heavyweight who placed third at this year’s NCAA championships, and Martinez, who is on the team but didn’t compete last season, were arrested after someone reported Saturday night that they had been raped and went to a hospital for treatment. The alleged attack happened shortly after 1 a.m. Saturday, according to a police report released Monday that lacked many details, including the age and sex of the accuser or specifics about what allegedly transpired.

Steveson’s attorney, Christa Groshek, said Steveson is shocked by his arrest and that he had been cooperating with police “because he felt that he didn’t have anything to hide.”

It wasn’t immediately clear whether Martinez has an attorney. Messages left with several possible relatives were not returned.

The university’s athletics department said in a statement it was “aware of a situation involving two of our student athletes” and that the two were suspended from all team activity pending further information. The statement didn’t identify the athletes or their sport.

As of Monday afternoon, the two men are still in custody and had not yet been charged. Police are still investigating the case, and will then turn over their findings to the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office.

Hennepin County prosecutors have until noon Tuesday to charge the two, seek an extension or release them.

Steveson was a four-time state champion at Apple Valley High School. He had a 35-2 record this season as a freshman and he placed third at this year’s NCAA championships. Martinez didn’t wrestle last season and was listed as a redshirt sophomore. He wrestled for Fresno (Calif.) City College before enrolling at Minnesota.

Besides criminal charges, the students may be found in violation of the U’s student code of conduct, which was updated in 2018.

A spokesperson for the U’s athletics department would not comment further on the case, but did say said the U’s procedures for disciplining athletes are outlined in the student-athlete code of conduct, which is an additional policy to the student code of conduct.

This isn’t the first time University of Minnesota athletes have been accused of sexual misconduct.

In September 2016, a female student alleged she was gang raped in an incident that implicated 10 football players. Criminal charges were not filed, but five students were ultimately expelled or suspended, while five others were cleared. Then-football coach Tracy Claeys was fired after he expressed pride in the players.

Minnesota basketball standout Reggie Lynch was accused of sexual assaulting two women on separate occasions in 2016. He was never criminally charged and denied the allegations, but dropped an appeal of his expulsion last year.

Also in 2016, wrestling coach J Robinson was fired after an investigation into the way he handled an alleged drug ring involving the anti-anxiety medication Xanax. Four wrestlers were suspended in connection with that incident.

Jason Tate Sr. spent Father’s Day in a hospital bed in the intensive care unit at Regions Hospital as his 3-year-old daughter sized him up from his bedside.

“She was scared so she didn’t want to touch him, but at the same time, when we were leaving she cried because she didn’t want him to stay there,” Laquita Tate recalled of her little girl’s first encounter with her dad since Jason Tate was shot and critically wounded June 9.

A woman who told police she dated Jason Tate for 10 months said she pulled the trigger out of self defense after he started hitting her and threatening her life while the two were looking for a place to eat that evening, according to the criminal complaint filed against Tametria Shavondra Gillespie last week.

Authorities found surveillance video of the incident that tells a different story, and charged the 40-year-old woman with one count of attempted murder.

Laquita Tate has been trying to understand what happened as her husband of the past five years drifts in and out of consciousness and doctors work to stabilize his condition.

The father of five still has feeding and breathing tubes and was headed into surgery to repair a fracture to his spine Monday morning that will hopefully allow him to sit up.

He was shot in his arm and torso, and bullets struck his spine and lungs, Laquita Tate said.

For now, he’s paralyzed from the waist down, but with intensive in-patient therapy down the road, it’s possible he’ll regain the use of his legs someday, she said.

“The doctors aren’t guaranteeing anything. They say it will be up to him,” Laquita Tate said Monday. “(Jason) doesn’t know what happened. … He squeezes my hand and looks over and asks me what happened. I tell him he got shot and he just shakes his head no.”

Laquita and Jason got married at a courthouse in Minneapolis five years ago after meeting in Iowa. Jason Tate already had two children, and he and Laquita Tate went on to have three more.

While he has no criminal record of note in Minnesota, he was convicted of theft, unauthorized use of a credit card, burglary and misdemeanor level assault while living in Iowa.

Together he and Laquita now parent five children between the ages of 1 and 12, Laquita Tate said. She works full-time as a dietary aid while he stays home to take care of the kids.

They’ve run into challenges over the years and the past two months their relationship has been on and off, Laquita Tate said, adding that Jason Tate was staying at his sister’s while the two tried to work things out.

That’s likely when he started seeing Tametra Gillespie, Laquita Tate said, noting that she doesn’t believe the woman’s account to police that their relationships started about 10 months ago.

She also doesn’t believe that a man who was never violent toward her would hit someone over an argument about where to grab food, she said.

“That’s just not him,” Laquita Tate said.

She wonders if the incident was triggered by Jason Tate trying to end things with Gillespie as he and Laquita decided to reconcile, she said Monday.

“We have five kids together. We live together. We always planned on getting back together,” she said.

Gillespie, 40, called police after she shot Jason Tate a little after 10 p.m. June 9. She told officers who responded to the scene at Rice Street and Larpenteur Avenue that she and Jason Tate had been driving around Roseville that evening when they started arguing about getting something to eat, according to the criminal complaint.

That’s when she said Jason Tate started repeatedly striking her in the face and threatening to kill her, so she shot him, Gillespie told officers.

Video footage obtained from a business nearby reveals holes in Gillespie’s account, authorities say.

It shows Jason Tate walking on Larpenteur Avenue toward a driveway in the 1600 block of Rice Street as Gillespie’s Honda pulls into the driveway, stopping his path, according to the criminal complaint filed in the case.

The footage then reportedly shows Gillespie get out of her vehicle and “strike or thrust” toward Jason Tate three times before he is seen falling to the ground.

Gillespie has no past criminal convictions in Minnesota.

Laquita Tate didn’t find out what happened until she was called to the hospital by her husband’s sister. It took authorities time to identify his family because he didn’t have an ID on him when he was shot, she said.

“It’s hard,” she said. “I’ve never had to deal with the kids all on my own and trying to work. I had to take a leave of absence. … He was my babysitter. He watched the kids everyday. Knowing my kids can’t see him is probably hurting me the worst. They ask about him every day.”

She was hesitant to let the children see him while he was still hooked up to a breathing tube. But when the doctors took it out temporarily on Father’s Day, she decided it was time.

The whole family huddled in his hospital room to mark the occasion.

The older kids moved in for hugs, but the youngest, unsure of the man in the hospital bed, hung back.

Jason was alert while they were there, and smiled at his kids, Laquita Tate said, but they couldn’t understand his meek whispers when he tried to speak.

“I love it,” Laquita Tate said of seeing her family together again. “Now the boys keep asking when can they go back.”

Gillespie’s next court day is scheduled for June 25.

Her attorney did not respond to request for comment.

Christopher Jerome Endicott described himself in court Monday as a narcissist who subconsciously took pleasure in his crimes.

The former Lakeville middle school principal read a 20-minute long statement before being sentenced by Dakota County District Court Judge Tim Wermager to 8½ years in prison for identity theft, stalking and burglary.

Endicott apologized to his 18 victims, including former colleagues, neighbors and in-laws; a teacher whom he had an affair with in 2011, and an Apple Valley police officer.

“I don’t pretend that what I did will ever make sense, even to me,” he said.

In April, Endicott, 51, of Apple Valley, pleaded guilty to two counts each of gross misdemeanor stalking and felony burglary in connection with a rash of crimes that he blamed on “financial ruin.” In February, Endicott pleaded guilty to felony identity theft.

In addition to sentencing Endicott to 102 months prison, Wermager also ordered him to pay nearly $20,000 in restitution to some of his victims.

“This is not your typical grab your wallet or purse and get the credit card and commit an offense,” Wermager said. “This involved using technology to really invade the private lives of the individuals that Mr. Endicott either worked with or his family members.”

The Dakota County attorney’s office sought an aggravated upward departure, which would have added up to 13 years and six months in prison.

Meanwhile, Endicott’s attorney, Bruce Rivers, asked for probation, based upon Endicott’s ongoing therapy and “amenability to probation.”

As part of the plea agreement with prosecutors, one count each of gross misdemeanor theft and felony financial transaction card fraud were dismissed at Monday’s sentencing. The two stalking charges were also reduced from felony level.

Before joining Century Middle School in Lakeville as its principal in 2012, Endicott was the assistant principal at Dakota Hills Middle School in Eagan, which is in the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan district. He resigned in May 2018.

Before Monday’s convictions, Endicott had not had a criminal record in Minnesota, other than a speeding conviction in Dakota County in 2011, court records show.

‘TRAUMATIZED THE STAFF’

Lakeville Area Schools’ Superintendent Michael Baumann was one of five people who addressed the court during Monday’s sentencing hearing. He read a statement on behalf of Century Middle School staff, the “community and the families we serve.”

“I can state unequivocally that Chris Endicott traumatized the staff, community and families of Century Middle School,” he said. “Unfortunately, he continues to do so to this very day.”

Baumann, who urged Wermager to give Endicott the maximum sentence possible, described the former educator as “extremely skilled in the use of technology” who “inserted himself in the configuration and administration” of the school’s technology systems. Endicott went into employee offices, desks and purses to gain access to personal information “necessary to steal the identities of many innocent victims,” Baumann said.

“As a result, they will continue to fear the ramifications of his actions today, tomorrow and for years to come,” he said.

‘FINANCIAL RUIN’

The allegations against Endicott surfaced in January 2018 after Apple Valley police said someone from his home accessed a phone and an iPad that belong to the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan school district, where his now ex-wife worked as a counselor and teacher.

Endicott later would be accused of stealing personal and financial information from employees of the school district, their family members and others.

Search warrants were executed at Endicott’s work and Apple Valley home, and computers and other electronic equipment were seized. Analysis of the electronics revealed significant personal and financial information about school employees and others, the charges say.

Investigators discovered Endicott made purchases using their credit cards and wrote about accessing several accounts. In one writing, Endicott indicated that he was in “financial ruin,” according to charges.

While under investigation in January 2018, Endicott was charged with gross misdemeanor stalking after he allegedly drove near an Apple Valley police detective’s home twice and to the police station three times in one day.

NEIGHBORS ALSO TARGETED

In March 2018, Endicott was accused of burglary for breaking into his next-door neighbors’ home in Apple Valley in 2015 while they were away, prying open a safe and stealing two rings. The rings were found in Endicott’s file cabinet at Century Middle School in February 2018 and traced back to the neighbors.

Also in March 2018, he was charged with second-degree burglary and theft for allegedly stealing sports cards in late 2017 from someone who rented his house. An employee of a sports memorabilia store put a value of $738 on the stolen cards, charges said.

In June 2018, burglary charges were filed in North Dakota accusing him of stealing $16,500 worth of rare coins from his then in-laws two years prior.

‘INVADED MY PRIVACY’

Endicott said Monday he hoped his statement would “add some insight” to his crimes.

He said his “financial crisis” was “his own creation” and were the result of living a lifestyle that he could not afford. He said he hid a large amount of debt from his now ex-wife.

Dakota County prosecutor Torrie Schneider discredited Endicott’s claim that his motivations were financial, telling the court, “He paints himself as the victim.”

A middle school teacher recalled for the court Monday how an Apple Valley detective called her in January 2018 to tell her that Endicott, her boss, had her checkbook. She said she soon learned he also had information from her bank accounts going back to college; her user names and passwords; credit cards he opened up in her name; and even her Sam’s Club membership number.

“He completely invaded my privacy,” she said. “I’ll never know why.”

The case against a Minneapolis woman accused of setting small fires on St. Catherine University’s campus and trying to travel to Afghanistan to join Al-Qaida remains on hold as questions regarding her competency to stand trial are weighed.

Tnuza Hassan appeared in federal court in St. Paul Monday afternoon via video conference for a brief hearing. It consisted of little more than attorneys for the prosecution and defense acknowledging they read the most recent competency report compiled on the 21-year-old.

The findings of the report were not made public as they pertain to confidential medical issues.

At one point, U.S. Magistrate Judge Steven Rau asked Hassan if she had also reviewed the report. Hassan said she had not.

“I haven’t been informed about anything,” she told the judge. “I have talked to my family and they haven’t learned much either, so I was kinda surprised by this court date today.”

Rau asked her defense attorney and the federal prosecutor to huddle at his bench briefly to discuss her response before telling Hassan that while she had a right to be present for her competency hearing, she didn’t “necessarily” have the right to provide any input.

Rau excused the court shortly thereafter.

The court ruled in January to delay Hassan’s trial as “there (was) reasonable cause to believe (she) may be presently suffering from a mental disease or defect rending her mentally incompetent to the extent that she is unable to understand the nature and consequences of the proceedings against her or to assist properly in her defense,” according to the court filing.

A competency report was ordered along with a hearing to review it once it was completed.

Hassan is being held in a facility in Texas, where she is receiving psychiatric and medical care, according to legal documents.

Her mother and sister attended Monday’s hearing.

Both said afterward that they had received little information on the status of Hassan’s case. They speak to her by phone whenever she’s able to call.

The date of her next hearing was not immediately available.

Hassan was arrested in January of 2018 after authorities say she set fires on the St. Catherine University’s campus in St. Paul, where she used to be a student.

Authorities say the fires were a self-proclaimed act of jihad.

Hassan faces three federal criminal counts, including attempting to support a terrorist organization, and arson. She’s also charged with arson in Ramsey County District Court.

For decades, Minnesota has resisted allowing cameras in courtrooms for the usual arguments — lawyers would grandstand, witnesses would be intimidated, decorum would be disrupted if public proceedings were recorded and broadcast.

Under rules that allowed the judge, prosecutors or defense attorneys to veto camera coverage during the trial phase, seeing a Minnesota trial on TV “would be as common as running into a unicorn in deer hunting season,” as media attorney Mark Anfinson put it.

But video coverage of high-profile sentencings — which don’t require approval from the parties involved — is giving a more frequent glimpse inside Minnesota courts. That’s cheered advocates of openness in the court system, even as they wish for easier access at the trial phase.

“It’s a definite first step. It’s not the finish line,” said Anfinson, who has seen an increasing number of video requests from news organizations since the state court system launched a pilot project in 2015.

When former Minneapolis police officer Mohamed Noor was sentenced this month to 12½ years in prison for fatally shooting Justine Ruszczyk Damond while answering her 911 call in 2017, viewers could see and hear Noor’s halting delivery as he apologized, hear the victim’s fiance Don Damond mourn the future he and his bride-to-be would not share, and hear the judge tell Noor “Good people sometimes do bad things” as she rejected his plea for leniency.

Showing courtroom action goes beyond artists’ sketches and allows people to see and hear it for themselves, said Suki Dardarian, senior managing editor at Minnesota’s largest newspaper, the Star Tribune of Minneapolis.

“You really do, as a member of the community, get to experience it yourself when you hear Justine Damond’s fiance speak, when you heard Noor speak, when you hear the judge speak. You couldn’t help but feel the emotion each of those people felt,” Dardarian said.

She said to witness that through video — “without anyone being in the way” — is “pretty powerful.”

Noor’s sentencing coincided with cameras filming other high-profile cases recently in Hennepin County, including the man who threw a 5-year-old Woodbury boy off a balcony at the Mall of America and a teenager who crashed a stolen SUV into a pickup truck, killing three people in Minneapolis.

Minnesota is more conservative than neighbors Wisconsin, Iowa and North Dakota in allowing cameras in courts. Defense attorneys who don’t want their clients on camera, victims’ advocates who worry about victims being traumatized again, judges and prosecutors have opposed expanding Minnesota’s rules, Anfinson said. (The Minnesota County Attorneys Association said it would implement the new rules but was “strongly opposed to any further expansion of audio and video coverage in criminal cases.”)

But Anfinson added: “There’s just no support at all that really can demonstrate empirically that these concerns are well grounded.”

Modern cameras are unobtrusive, and gone are the days of the Lindbergh baby kidnapping trial “where you had to run and call it in,” said University of Minnesota professor Jane Kirtley, who directs the Center for the Study of Media Ethics and Law.

And while the sensational O.J. Simpson murder trial of 25 years ago is “the poster child of why cameras in the court are a bad thing” to many judges, Kirtley said, those trial’s excesses “had very little to do within the courtroom.”

Washington County’s lead prosecutor, Pete Orput, said he has no problem with the new sentencing rules and would like to see electronic coverage expanded as long as victims are protected. Doing so would help people understand what goes on in courts, he said.

“Why not publicize a trial? It doesn’t have to be a circus,” Orput said.

But Twin Cities defense attorney Marsh Halberg isn’t as positive about cameras in court, even though he thinks their use will only grow.

“What I don’t like is the 15-second sound bites at the 6 o’clock news that comes from it,” Halberg said. “It can paint things in a distorted way.”

Advocates for increased camera coverage point to Wisconsin and the kidnapping of 13-year-old Jayme Closs. Court hearings for Jake Patterson, who pleaded guilty to and was sentenced for kidnapping Jayme and killing her parents, were covered by TV and still photographers and livestreamed without apparent problems.

Anfinson, the media lawyer, said such access can have “cathartic effects” for a community “when you see real justice being done.”

“Yes, it’s happening. We didn’t just hear about it, read about it. We saw justice being done in what was a terrible case,” Anfinson said.

Defense attorney Eric Nelson, a partner with Halberg in a Bloomington law firm, represented Levi Acre-Kendall, who was acquitted in a man’s April 2015 stabbing death along the St. Croix River in western Wisconsin. Nelson said cameras created no distraction at that trial.

“You kind of forget until the end of the day” that a camera was in the courtroom, Nelson said.

KSTP-TV assignment manager Daren Sukhram, who handles the St. Paul station’s requests for camera coverage, said cameras that go into court are “just showing what happens hundreds of times a month at regular court hearings around the state.”

He said electronic media should be treated no differently than other forms of communication.

“No reporter has been banned from court for bringing in pen and paper,” he said. “So why are we not allowed to bring a camera in there?”

Police have arrested a St. Paul man accused of shooting a woman and leaving her for dead in the middle of a road in rural Washington County.

Luis Alfredo Cortez Mendoza, 23, was arrested Saturday in Minneapolis by the Minneapolis Police Department in connection with the gang-related shooting. The 39-year-old St. Paul woman was found shot in the middle of a May Township road about 2:30 a.m. June 9.

An Uber driver found the woman near the intersection of St. Croix Trail North and 124th Street North — about 23 miles northeast of downtown St. Paul — bleeding from a bullet wound to her right breast. The woman, whose name has not been released, was treated at Regions Hospital in St. Paul.

Mendoza appeared in Washington County District Court on Monday on charges of attempted first-degree murder for the benefit of a gang, attempted second-degree murder for the benefit of a gang and kidnapping for the benefit of a gang. Bail was set at $2 million.

His next court appearance will be at 9 a.m. Monday.

WOMAN DESCRIBED SHOOTING

The woman told authorities that Mendoza and another suspect in the case, a 32-year-old man, are members of the Surenos 13 gang, according to the criminal complaint.

The woman allegedly purchased a gun from the second man, paying $300 of the $400 upfront, and “told him to come back for the rest later,” the complaint states.

The woman told police she placed the gun on her nightstand that night and when she woke up in the morning, it was gone. She texted the man, explained the gun was missing, and he and Mendoza showed up at her apartment “armed with guns and demanded the money she owed or that the gun be found and returned,” the complaint states.

Mendoza and the man heated a metal tool over an open flame on the stove and threatened the woman and two others in the apartment. The woman refused to hold the scalding tool and was forced to leave with the men. She was put in the back of a light-blue Audi TT and driven around for the rest of the day and night. She said she was given a pill that made her fall asleep and when she woke up, Mendoza told her it was time to get out and pointed a gun at her, according to the complaint.

“Mendoza stood a car’s length away and shot at the victim three times, striking her in the chest with one of the bullets,” the complaint states. “(He) jumped in his car and fled the area.”

Mendoza later told police that the second man told him to shoot and kill the woman and gave him the gun to do it. He said he was afraid that if he did not shoot and kill her, “he would be killed himself,” the complaint states.

He said he shot the woman while wearing rubber gloves and then gave the gun back to the other man. “A couple of days later, Mendoza’s car was painted black at (the man’s) direction,” the complaint states.

Mendoza also was branded with a tattoo of “13” by the man and the Surenos gang, according to the complaint.

MAN’S BODY FOUND NEARBY

The Washington County sheriff’s office was assisted by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension in the investigation. The shooting was the second major crime to occur in May Township, pop. 2,898, this month.

His body was found on a Sunday afternoon in the 17600 block of Manning Trail by a man who lives near the area. He discovered the body near a culvert while driving home from a graduation open house.

The sheriff’s office is still investigating. Thomson-Dougherty Funeral Home in Minneapolis is handling arrangements, according to the Ramsey County medical examiner’s office.

MAY TOWNSHIP

Two teenage boys are accused of fatally shooting a Maple Grove man in an attempted carjacking last week in Minneapolis.

The teens were charged Monday in juvenile court for their roles in the death of 39-year-old Steven Markey, but the Hennepin County attorney’s office has asked that they be tried as adults.

Jered Ohsman, 16, of Coon Rapids faces two counts of second-degree murder in Markey’s death and one count each of burglary, motor vehicle theft and fleeing a peace officer in a related case, according to the juvenile petition filed against him in Hennepin County District Court.

His alleged accomplice — a 15-year-old boy identified in court documents as H.B. — was also charged, but because he is under 16, information about his charges cannot be released publicly unless he is tried as an adult, the county attorney’s office said.

Ohsman and H.B. allegedly approached Markey last Tuesday afternoon as he was sitting in his parked car near 14th Avenue and Tyler Street in Northeast Minneapolis. Armed with pistols, the pair ordered Markey out of his vehicle, according to court documents.

During the robbery, the boys allegedly shot Markey, who attempted to drive off but crashed his car about a block away. He later died of multiple gunshot wounds.

Ohsman said he shot Markey because he believed Markey may have reached for a gun, but H.B. told investigators that he believed Ohsman shot Markey because Markey laughed at the boys, court documents said. Both admitted to firing their guns, according to the juvenile petition against Ohsman.

The boys then ditched their guns and changed their clothes, before stealing an SUV in St. Louis Park later that night and burglarizing a pair of cellphone stores, the juvenile petition said. Police caught up with the boys in New Hope, where they crashed the SUV as they fled officers on U.S. 169, according to court documents.

Ohsman and H.B. were arrested and remain in custody.