A Lowertown artist said she had a mission as she painted a mural on a store’s boarded up windows — she wanted the message to be about the need for more conversation about racism in the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis police custody.

But the painting came to an end before it was done.

Olga Nichols said the owner of the business — Adam’s Market on 5th Street, between Jackson and Robert streets — gave her and a few other artists permission to paint the mural on the wood covering the windows.

The building’s owner, however, said his company did not grant permission for the mural to be painted on the store. James Crockarell also said many people had voiced concerns about the particular depiction of Floyd in the mural, adding some could interpret it as “negative and inflammatory.”

The mural, which included the words “solidarity,” “unity,” “equality” and “equity,” also included a painting of Floyd in a noose.

Nichols said she knew the image would be controversial, but that’s why she painted it. Experiencing racism has inspired her art in the past, and she said she wanted the mural to provoke that conversation.

“I think doing controversial pieces is worth it, and my point was to show how uncomfortable I am everyday as a person of color when I’m followed by the police,” Nichols said.

Crockarell, the largest private downtown St. Paul building owner, said no one contacted his company, Madison Equities, about painting the mural.

“We do not want to participate in inflammatory graphics being put on the side of our building,” he said. “It is private property; it shouldn’t have been put there to begin with and they did not have a right to do it without our approval, so we removed it.”

The artists began painting the mural June 23. According to Nichols, Madison Equities sent a security guard the next day to tell the artists that new windows would be arriving to replace the boards in a day or so, and therefore Nichols may want to stop painting.

“To us, that was an option,” Nichols said. “So we planned on continuing.”

Nichols is a freelance artist and activist in downtown St. Paul. She had planned a community involvement event for the mural on June 27, but had to cancel it when the art was covered up.

She said the owner of Adam’s Market apologized to her and said that while they were forced to cover the art, they will return the mural to Nichols. Nichols said she picked the location of the market because it was vandalized during the civil unrest in the wake of Floyd’s killing.

A representative from the market could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Nichols said she doesn’t know where she will display the unfinished mural, but that it will find a temporary or permanent home somewhere in St. Paul.

People have painted murals and artwork honoring Floyd along boarded-up windows on St. Paul’s University Avenue and in Minneapolis, where businesses were also damaged during rioting after Floyd’s death. Peaceful protests came before the unrest and have continued since.

A 15-hour standoff in Hastings ended early Friday with one man in custody and two children safe.

Police Chief Bryan Schafer said officers were sent to a Hastings mobile home park around 11:30 a.m. Thursday to check on an altercation between a man and a tow truck driver.

At the scene at 31st Street and Millard Avenue, officers attempted to separate a man and a woman to get more information. The woman left the home with two children, but the man grabbed two other children, took them back inside the home and barricaded himself inside.

A SWAT team rescued a 13-year-old from the home around 10 p.m. Thursday. After efforts to get the suspect to release a 4-year-old failed, SWAT officers entered the residence around 2:30 a.m. Friday, rescued the child and arrested the 36-year-old suspect.

According to KSTP-TV, police identified the man as 36-year-old Gerald Edward Bolster II.

The case will be forwarded to the Dakota County attorney’s office for charges.

Several SWAT officers suffered heat exhaustion because of the hot weather. A dozen were treated at the scene and at least three were hospitalized.

By TOM HAYS and MICHAEL R. SISAK

NEW YORK (AP) — Before Jeffrey Epstein’s jailhouse suicide last year, his defense hinged on a 2008 deal with federal prosecutors in Florida over his alleged sexual abuse of multiple teenage girls. His lawyers said it prevented him from being charged with further crimes.

Could that same deal now help Ghislaine Maxwell, the Epstein confidante arrested Thursday, evade charges she helped lure at least three girls into sexual liaisons with him?

Maxwell’s lawyers haven’t outlined their defense strategy, but her legal team is bound to raise the issue in the months ahead.

The British socialite was arrested Thursday in New Hampshire on charges that she acted as a recruiter of underage girls for Epstein, usually under the guise of hiring them to perform massages, and sometimes participated in his sexual abuse of the teens.

The allegations against the couple date back many years, but Epstein, for a while, appeared to have resolved them under a deal with federal and state prosecutors in South Florida in which he pleaded guilty to lesser state charges and served 13 months in jail and a work-release program.

After a Miami Herald expose brought new attention to the case, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan brought new charges against Epstein last July, arguing that the 2008 deal only applied to the specific U.S. attorney’s office in Florida that made the agreement — not all 94 federal prosecutor’s offices in the country.

A key for Maxwell is that agreement also sought to prevent criminal charges from being brought “against any potential co-conspirators of Epstein.”

The agreement lists four women by name, possibly because they received subpoenas or “target letters” from the government over allegations they were paid to recruit girls for Epstein. However, the agreement notes, it is “not limited to” only them.

Maxwell was not one of the four women identified by name in the agreement, but former Miami federal prosecutor David Weinstein said the “not limited to” wording is broad enough for her lawyers to contend it applied to her, too.

Maxwell’s lawyers could argue “just because her name wasn’t mentioned doesn’t mean she wasn’t protected by the agreement,” Weinstein said Friday.

Gerald Lefcourt, a lawyer who negotiated the 2008 agreement, told the AP last year that he “would never have signed the agreement or recommended it unless we believed that it resolved what it said: all federal and state criminal liability.”

In Maxwell’s indictment, the New York prosecutors appeared to build in an insurance policy — deliberately charging her with crimes occurring in the 1990s, a time period slightly before the activities with underage girls that were the subject of Epstein’s 2008 guilty plea.

If a judge were to rule that the New York prosecutors were indeed bound by the non-prosecution agreement, they could then argue that “this stuff happened before, so it’s not covered and therefore Maxwell’s not protected,” Weinstein said.

A message seeking comment was left Friday for Maxwell’s lawyer. She is being held without bail in New Hampshire and has previously denied any wrongdoing.

Maxwell may not have necessarily counted on the Epstein deal to protect her. In court papers filed Thursday, prosecutors said she went into hiding after Epstein’s arrest last year and took steps to avoid detection before she was apprehended in New Hampshire.

In a memo requesting that she remain jailed until her trial, prosecutors said Maxwell, 58, is linked to more than 15 bank accounts with balances ranging from hundreds of thousands of dollars to more than $20 million.

Furthermore, they said, she has citizenship in France, where she was born; the United Kingdom, where she has long-lived; and the U.S., where she was naturalized in 2002, and possesses passports from all three countries.

As authorities closed in on Epstein, Maxwell continued to travel frequently, prosecutors said, making at least 15 international flights in the last three years to places including the UK, Japan, and Qatar before ending up in a home on a 156-acre property in Bradford, New Hampshire, that was purchased for more than $1 million in cash through a limited liability corporation last December.

That’s where she was arrested.

While in seclusion, prosecutors said, Maxwell changed her phone number and registered it under the name “G Max,” adopted a new email address and ordered deliveries that had a different name on the shipping label.

After Epstein’s death last August, Attorney General William Barr warned that “any co-conspirators should not rest easy.”

“Let me assure you that this case will continue on against anyone who was complicit,” Barr said at the time. “The victims deserve justice, and they will get it.”

One famous name, Britain’s Prince Andrew, has denied a woman’s allegation that Maxwell arranged for them to have sex at her London townhouse in 2001, when she was 17. Andrew has said the woman was “totally lying.”

The woman’s allegation was not included in the charges filed Thursday against Maxwell, but at a news conference following the arrest, Acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said her office was still interested in speaking with the prince.

Police say a man was shot in the back near Beaver Lake on St. Paul’s Greater East Side on Saturday afternoon.

St. Paul police were dispatched about 1:30 p.m. to the fishing pier near 1060 Edgewater Blvd., where they found a man suffering from a gunshot wound to his upper back.

He was transported to Regions Hospital for treatment of what police say appears to be a non-life-threatening injury.

No arrests have been made. The case remains under investigation.

Mendota Heights police are investigating after a man was stabbed on Wednesday night.

Officers received a report about 7:30 p.m. and the man reported the assault took place near the 700 block of Plaza Drive, which is in the area of Dodd Road and Minnesota 62.

The man, whose injuries were non-life threatening, was transported by ambulance to a hospital, according to police.

Officers, including two K-9 teams, responded to the scene and searched the area for the suspect, who was not found Wednesday night.

After a 22-year-old man was shot in St. Paul, he told police that he and his girlfriend had been having problems with another man and his girlfriend over things posted on social media.

The two men saw each other in the parking lot of the former Sears on Rice Street on June 19 and exchanged words.

The 22-year-old thought they were going to fight, but instead he heard a shot and saw blood, according to a criminal complaint filed Wednesday. A bullet went through his chest and out his back, and he was treated at Regions Hospital.

The Ramsey County attorney’s office charged Ryan L. Knudsen, 21 of Shoreview, with second-degree assault and illegal possession of a firearm. Knudsen was convicted of aggravated robbery as a teen and is not allowed to posses a firearm.

Police arrested Knudsen on Tuesday. His girlfriend told police she hadn’t seen the altercation, but Knudsen told her that a guy came up and pointed a gun at him. Knudsen also told her he turned the gun in the man’s hand, so it was pointing away from him, and it then went off and struck the man, according to the complaint.

Knudsen stated to police that he had no idea why he was arrested. When an investigator told him he knew that he’d got into it with the man in the parking lot, Knudsen said he did not. The investigator asked how the man was shot and Knudsen requested an attorney, the complaint said.

His attorney declined to comment on Thursday.

OWATONNA, Minn. — A Minnesota woman who pleaded guilty to fatally shooting a woman in Florida so she could assume her identity has been returned to her home state to face trial on allegations that she killed her husband in 2018.

Lois Riess is being held at the Steele County Detention Center in Owatonna on charges of first- and second-degree murder. She’s accused of fatally shooting David Riess at their home in Blooming Prairie in March 2018.

Riess drove to Florida afterward, befriended Pamela Hutchinson and fatally shot her at a Fort Myers Beach condo the following month, according to prosecutors. Riess targeted Hutchinson because they looked alike and Riess intended to steal her identity, an indictment said.

She received a life sentence in December after pleading guilty to first-degree murder in Hutchinson’s death.

With her head of white hair, the 58-year-old Riess garnered national attention as the “fugitive grandma” before she was captured in April 2018 in Texas.

The Florida Department of Corrections cleared the way in March for Riess to be sent to Minnesota. She was booked into the Steele County jail Friday.

Four years after a police officer shot and killed Philando Castile, Minnesota public safety officials on Monday announced new guidelines for keeping everyone safe during traffic stops.

An updated driver’s manual now contains instructions for how drivers should interact with law enforcement, including when there’s a gun in the car. The manual also explains what drivers can expect from the officer.

Castile, a licensed gun carrier, told St. Anthony police officer Jeronimo Yanez during a traffic stop that he had a firearm in his car. Castile was pulled over July 6, 2016. Seconds later, Yanez shot him. The exchange and its aftermath were captured on video.

The officer testified that he thought Castile was reaching for his gun to kill him. Prosecutors said Castile was going for his wallet. A jury found Yanez not guilty of manslaughter.

SHOW YOUR HANDS

Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington explained the manual updates to reporters Monday, underscoring what he said is the most important addition: “where to put your hands.”

Harrington said all drivers should keep their hands visible, preferably on the steering wheel, throughout a traffic stop, unless an officer gives specific instructions to move them.

“That is the key message for all drivers, white, Black or otherwise, especially if you have a firearm,” he said.

That means a driver should not reach into his or her pocket for a wallet or toward a glove compartment for insurance paperwork without getting clear permission from the officer to do so, Harrington continued.

Next, the driver should tell the officer whether he or she has a firearm in the vehicle, as well as where it’s located.

“Don’t reach around inside your vehicle. Don’t get out of the vehicle,” Harrington said. “What we want you to do is stay in the car, with your hands where we can see them and talk to us. Hands are what kill in this business.”

The manual also details what drivers should expect from officers conducting a traffic stop. It says the officer should identify his or herself to the driver, ask for the driver’s license and insurance, inform the driver of the reason for the stop, and check the validity of the driver’s license.

SHOWING MUTUAL RESPECT

Assistant Commissioner Booker Hodges also emphasized that drivers should expect law enforcement officers to treat them with respect throughout traffic stops, and vice versa.

“The whole idea of this is (to ensure that) everyone goes home from traffic stops,” Hodges said. If we all know what to expect … that is going to be a whole lot better for all of us.”

Castile’s mother, Valerie Castile, pushed for the manual changes. She shared at Monday’s event how painful the last four years have been.

“We are talking about 1,461 days that I have not seen my son, have not touched my son,” she said. “It brings delight that the Department of Public Safety has updated the driver’s manual because this … little bit of information can save lots of lives, because you don’t know what you are going to get when the police walk up to your car.”

The goal is to make expectations around communication clear and ensure that both sides of the stop — driver and officer — are “on the same page,” she said.

The updated manual is just one instance of innumerable laws and policies in need of revision to ensure equal treatment of Black and brown community members, Valerie Castile continued.

The Department of Public Safety informed police training academies throughout the state of the changes, Harrington said. The next step will be to ensure the update also is taught to current officers.

Thanking Valerie Castile for her advocacy, Harrington added that he’s “embarrassed” it’s taken Minnesota so long to make the changes.

"The whole goal of this is everybody goes home after a traffic stop," DPS Assistant Commissioner Booker Hodges said.

The Minnesota Driver’s Manual has been updated to provide specific guidance to motorists with firearms. https://t.co/L5cbV1X6oK pic.twitter.com/EjScmVKpds

— MnDPS_DPS (@MnDPS_DPS) July 6, 2020

St. Paul police asked for the public’s help Monday to find a driver who shot and seriously wounded another motorist in June.

There was a young child in the suspect’s front passenger seat, whom he fired over, said Steve Linders, a St. Paul police spokesman.

The suspect and 37-year-old victim didn’t know each other and “it’s possible it was some kind of road rage incident” in the Payne-Phalen neighborhood, Linders said.

Linders said he did not have information about what happened between the the two drivers, but the suspect became upset with the other man, pulled up next to him and fired into the victim’s driver’s side window near Geranium Avenue and Arcade Street on June 14 about 5:35 p.m.

The man sustained a gunshot wound to his lower back and was hospitalized with significant injuries, Linders said.

Police released a photo on Monday from a surveillance camera, which they said showed the suspect and the vehicle he was driving. It’s believed to be a 1971 Buick LeSabre convertible.

The car has a custom paint job, which could be brown, burgundy or a similar color, according to police. The seats appeared to be white leather.

Police are asking anyone with information to call them at 651-266-5650.

Authorities arrested a Spring Lake Park man Monday who shot at a SWAT armored vehicle four times that morning in the second armed standoff he’s had with authorities in the past two weeks.

Steven Carlos Bezek, 50, is in custody at the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office Jail, officials said.

The incident began about 11 a.m. Monday when a 911 caller reported that a man was threatening him with a gun in the 7700 block of Jackson Street NE. Police from Fridley, Spring Lake Park and the Anoka County sheriff’s office responded but Bezek would not surrender, officials said.

Authorities say Bezek was involved in an armed standoff June 26 in which he fired multiple rounds. On Monday, Bezek fired from inside his home and shot at the armored vehicle four times. He also shot a home in the neighborhood with people inside.

Several hours later, he went outside and SWAT team members prevented him from going back into his home and took him into custody. There were no injuries.

This incident remains under investigation by the Spring Lake Police Department and the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office. Further details will be released once a formal complaint is issued.

The Ramsey County Jail superintendent who made the decision that correctional officers of color could not interact with the former Minneapolis police officer charged with murder in the George Floyd case remains at work. But he should be on administrative leave, the attorney representing eight officers reiterated to the sheriff this week.

“Although your office apparently now admits this discrimination occurred, it has not placed Superintendent (Steve) Lydon on administrative leave and he continues to work for the County, in the same building as my clients,” attorney Bonnie Smith wrote to Sheriff Bob Fletcher. “Employees of yours have been placed on administrative leave for much less.”

Lydon’s job title remains “superintendent,” according to Chief Deputy Dave Metusalem. “He has been administratively reassigned to work on special projects pending the outcome of an internal investigation into his conduct and the resolution of the Human Rights complaint.”

The eight correctional officers, who are minorities, filed complaints on June 19 with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, in which they said they were discriminated against by their employer because they were prohibited from interacting with ex-officer Derek Chauvin when he was brought to the Ramsey County Jail. Chauvin is white and Floyd was Black.

Lydon said in a statement on June 21 that he made the move to protect employees “who may have been traumatized and may have heightened ongoing trauma by having to deal with Chauvin.” He said after staff expressed concern, “within 45 minutes I realized my error and reversed the order” and apologized.

Metusalem said Tuesday that Lydon reports to him and “his work space has been physically moved from the detention center as he no longer is supervising jail staff.”

Lydon previously came into the jail for supervising, but his office was always in the administrative side of the building, according to an acting sergeant who was among the people who filed a discrimination complaint.

Smith said Tuesday she has not received a response to the letter she sent Fletcher on Monday. She said her message was sparked by correctional officers having an “incredibly difficult time going to work” because they feel changes have not been made.

SERGEANT SAYS ORDER MADE HIM FEEL SICK

Smith announced the discrimination complaints on June 21, without publicizing the names of the correctional officers because she said they fear retaliation.

The most senior employee in the group is an African-American man who is an acting sergeant in the jail. He’s also a captain in the U.S. Army Reserve and said he’s commanded the largest company in the Minnesota National Guard.

When Chauvin was brought to the jail, he began a standard pat-down to check him for weapons or anything else that’s not allowed in the jail.

“In the 10-plus years I’ve worked there, I’ve had a high number of high-profile inmates and he was no different than anybody else,” the sergeant said in a recent interview. “It wouldn’t have affected the way that he was treated.”

At that point, the sergeant said Lydon told him he didn’t want him doing the pat-down or escorting Chauvin to the housing unit.

The sergeant said he called his direct supervisor and asked if it was true that all minorities were being moved off the fifth floor, where Chauvin was being held, which he confirmed.

He felt sick to his stomach, he said, because, “in essence (Lydon) was saying because we were people of color, that we could not be depended on to do our job professionally.”

Two correctional officers said in their complaints that white officers weren’t segregated from Chauvin and “to the contrary,” they saw on the jail’s cameras that a white lieutenant “was granted special access” to Chauvin on May 30. They wrote that she sat on his bed and allowed Chauvin to use her cell phone, which the acting sergeant said would be a violation of jail policy.

Metusalem said there is an open investigation into her conduct. “At this point, investigators have reviewed several hours of jail video and found no evidence that a violation occurred,” he said.

SHERIFF’S OFFICE SAYS THEY’RE COMPLYING WITH TIMELINES

Several days later, 60 to 70 correctional officers brought their concerns to Fletcher in a meeting. Fletcher said on June 21 that his office had made changes immediately, including having Undersheriff Bill Finney temporarily head the Detention Division.

The acting sergeant said they filed their complaints with the state about two weeks after the meeting, however, because they didn’t see changes happening. On June 21, Fletcher announced he was reviewing the matter to determine whether any additional action was necessary.

The sergeant said Tuesday he has not been interviewed for an internal affairs investigation into Lydon.

Metusalem said Tuesday that the sheriff’s office “values each and every one of its employees.”

“We are complying with all of the prescribed timelines and look forward to working with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights to reach a resolution in this matter,” he said.

Authorities in Minneapolis have released the name of a pregnant shooting victim who was pronounced dead after her baby was delivered.

The Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office on Tuesday identified the victim as Leneesha Columbus, 27, of Minneapolis. The medical examiner’s office said Columbus died of a gunshot wound to her torso and her death was a homicide.

Columbus was in a vehicle when she was shot about 9 p.m. Sunday in south Minneapolis, police said. Paramedics rushed the woman to Hennepin County Medical Center where the baby was delivered and placed in intensive care. The woman was later pronounced dead.

Police said Tuesday no one has been arrested.

U.S. Attorney Erica H. MacDonald announced the formation of a new task force Wednesday that will address a surge in gun violence and violent crimes throughout the Twin Cities.

The Twin Cities Violent Crime Task Force will work with additional state and federal resources to help local law enforcement investigate, arrest and prosecute individuals contributing to the gun violence in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

As of Tuesday, 101 people have been shot this year in St. Paul, including at least 13 fatally, according to police. That’s compared with 70 people shot by the end of June 2019.

There have been 17 homicides in St. Paul this year, five more than the same period last year. Reports of shots-fired were up 145 percent — there were 1,083 such reports through the end of June.

“Law enforcement partners will utilize the task force to maximize intelligence gathering and information sharing capabilities to ensure swift and precise identification of those individuals who are perpetrating violence,” the U.S. Attorney’s office said in a statement.

MacDonald stressed that the goal of the task force is “not to flood our communities with law enforcement,” but rather to create a way for community members and city leaders to collaborate with law enforcement while putting a stop to gun violence.

The task force is made up of federal agents and analysts from the FBI, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, U.S.Secret Service, U.S. Marshals Service, Drug Enforcement Administration, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the Minneapolis and St. Paul police departments, Hennepin, Ramsey and Dakota counties sheriff’s offices and federal and state prosecutors.

Meanwhile, the public can report information by calling 800-225-5324 or submit photos and/or videos at www.fbi.gov/violence.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — An attorney for one of four Minneapolis police officers charged in the death of George Floyd is asking to have his client’s case dismissed, saying there isn’t probable cause to charge him based on all of the evidence in the case and the law.

In court filings made public Wednesday, Thomas Lane’s attorney, Earl Gray, painted an image of a rookie officer who trusted his senior officer after Floyd had been acting erratically, struggling and hurting himself. Gray said Lane had asked twice if officers should roll Floyd on his side, and the senior officer — Derek Chauvin — said no.

As part of his court filing, Gray filed transcripts from body camera footage recorded by Lane’s camera and the camera of his partner, J. Kueng, as well as a transcript of Lane’s interview with state investigators. Gray wrote that all of the evidence exonerates his client and that it is not “fair or reasonable” for Lane to stand trial.

Floyd, a Black handcuffed man, died May 25 after Chauvin, a white officer, pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for nearly 8 minutes and held it there even after Floyd said he couldn’t breathe and stopped moving.

Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter. Lane, Kueng and Tou Thao are charged with aiding and abetting both second-degree murder and manslaughter. Lane was holding Floyd’s legs at the time, Kueng was at Floyd’s midsection and Thao was watching nearby bystanders. All four officers were fired.

Gray said in his court filing that his client’s body camera video shows a complete view of how the encounter with Floyd went from the time Lane got on the scene to the point where Floyd was put into an ambulance; Lane went in the ambulance and helped with CPR.

Gray said that from the start, Lane demanded to see Floyd’s hands at least 10 times while Floyd was in his car, and Lane told investigators he drew his gun because Floyd was reaching for something, but then holstered it once Floyd showed his hands. Gray said Floyd was acting erratically and had foam at his mouth.

Lane and Kueng struggled to get Floyd into the squad car, and Floyd told the officers “I can’t breathe” and “I want to lay on the ground.”

Gray wrote that Floyd started to thrash back and forth and was “hitting his face on the glass in the squad and began to bleed from his mouth.” Officers brought Floyd to the ground and, “The plan was to restrain him so he couldn’t move and hurt himself anymore,” Gray wrote.

As Floyd yelled out, Lane told the other officers “he’s got to be on something.” and he asked twice whether officers should roll Floyd onto his side, and Chauvin said no.

“Lane had no basis to believe Chauvin was wrong in making that decision,” Gray wrote.

Lane told state investigators that Chauvin was not Lane’s field training officer, but he was an officer that Lane had previously gone to for guidance.

Gray also argued that in order to charge Lane with aiding and abetting, prosecutors must show Lane played a knowing role in committing a crime. He said there’s no evidence Lane played an intentional role or knew Chauvin was committing a crime.

“The decision to restrain Floyd was reasonably justified,” Gray wrote, adding: “Based on Floyd’s actions up to this point, the officers had no idea what he would do next – hurt himself, hurt the officers, flee, or anything else, but he was not cooperating.”

Gray wrote that Lane’s trust in Chauvin was “reasonable and not criminal.”

Turning to incarceration as a last resort, declining to prosecute low level and non-violent crimes, ignoring a person’s past criminal history when making present-day charging decisions.

Those are just some reforms two national justice organizations are pushing prosecutors across the country to consider as a way to address racial disparities in the criminal justice system.

The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office was one of three offices across the country chosen to participate in the Vera Institute and the Institute for Innovation in Prosecution’s new pilot program focused on strategically shaking up traditional prosecutorial approaches in the name of racial equity.

Prosecutors’ offices in Suffolk County in Boston as well as Ingham County in Lansing, Mich., also were selected.

A DEEP DATA DIVE

The organizations’ staff will do a deep dive into data collected by three offices to understand how prosecutorial decisions have impacted black and brown communities, and then work to identify strategies and policies aimed at eliminating racial disparities, said Jamila Hodge, director of Vera’s Reshaping Prosecution program.

To ensure the work isn’t done in a vacuum, the pilot will engage community members, particularly those most impacted by the criminal justice system, to develop plans. Line-attorneys will also receive in-depth training and education on the changes.

Ramsey County was a natural choice given the work Ramsey County Attorney John Choi did to help lay the groundwork for the initiative, as well as his offices’ commitment to reform, Hodge said.

Ramsey County adopted a policy last year to stop prosecuting low-level marijuana possession, for example, and adopted another policy that instructs prosecutors to consider the collateral consequences of charging decisions, such as their impact on an individual’s immigration status.

“We tried to pick three places where we can push and push hard for real change,” Hodge said. “I think Ramsey County, under John’s leadership, presents us with that opportunity.”

TIMING ‘COULDN’T BE MORE IMPORTANT’

Ramsey County applied for the spot last year, long before protests erupted across the country after George Floyd’s handcuffed body went limp under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer.

With that in mind, the timing of this work “couldn’t be more important,” Choi said.

“I used to be a prosecutor that believed these issues were so complex that a lot of it was out of my control,” Choi said. “Now I have come to believe that a prosecutor can play an important role … in helping ensure justice for everybody, and that means paying attention to racial disparities, and more importantly, doing something about them.”

While his office has been committed to reform for years, Choi described most of that work to date as “tinkering” with the “entrance” and “exit” ramps of the criminal justice system.

This work will focus on overhauling “the highway,” he said.

An example he pointed to was the juvenile system, where his office has tested the waters of involving community members in not only charging decisions, but also in deciding appropriate consequences.

INVOLVING COMMUNITY MEMBERS, OTHER LEGAL OFFICIALS

Community members and other justice partners — probation, police, child protection, public defenders — could get more heavily involved at the adult level as well, Choi said, emphasizing that change is necessary.

In Ramsey County, 67 percent of adults in the criminal justice system are people of color, while they make up 37 percent of the county’s population, for example, according to his office.

The disparities, which persist nationwide, are the result of a system built to find new ways to enslave the Black community after formal slavery was abolished, Hodge said.

Black people were arrested for minor offenses, such as vagrancy or being out in public without written permission, to create ways to lease them back to the plantations where they were formerly enslaved, she explained. The War on Drugs is a more modern example of a practice that led to the mass incarceration of Black people, she said.

One of the leading action steps outlined in the initiative is to train prosecutors on local discriminatory practices and policies, Hodge continued, noting that understanding how the criminal justice system evolved is key to reshaping it.

She said she is aware that some ideas might appear radical, such as not considering criminal history in charging decisions, but urged people to stay open to their merit.

Black communities have historically been over-policed, which has impacted criminal records, so relying on that in present charging decisions can further perpetuate a problem, she said.

Plus an individual’s past conduct has no bearing on whether a prosecutor has enough evidence to prove a present allegation, she added.

CUSTOMIZED TO INDIVIDUAL COMMUNITIES

Each pilot program will be customized to individual communities, and no decisions have been made yet on which policy or prosecutorial changes will take place where.

The data, and engagement with the community, will drive those decisions, Hodge said, adding that the organizations’ will continue to study the data after changes have been made to see if they really help.

Meanwhile, Robert Small, executive director of the Minnesota County Attorneys Association, said the association as a whole hasn’t talked about what role, if any, prosecutors should play in eliminating racial disparities, though it has offered quite a bit of training on implicit bias.

He wasn’t surprised to hear Choi’s office was examining it though. Choi led the association two years ago.

“I would say John is a progressive thinker and that he was a leader on progressive thinking in our office so I think this sounds like a great pilot for his office to be involved in,” Small said.

Choi said he is excited about the work ahead for his office, noting that he expects it will trigger some opposition and hard conversations. That’s necessary though, he said.

“We are not going to get anywhere unless people start understanding some of the historical harms that we have done and to own and acknowledge some of the bad things about our criminal justice system,” he said. “From there we can start building something new and something better.”

RACINE, Wis. — A Wisconsin police officer says he did what any dog lover would do when a pet is in a burning home. He rescued the pup.

Caledonia K-9 Officer Cory Radke and his canine partner, Lou, were on their way home Monday when Radke saw smoke and heard a dispatcher calling all squad cars to the fire.

WITI-TV reports Radke was first to arrive at the house. He kicked in a side door, calling out for dogs as smoke filled the living room.

In body cam video released Tuesday, Radke is heard saying, “Come here, puppy!”

Radke found a dog named Deezel on the couch. After getting the dog outside, the officer went back in, but the smoke was getting to him.

Firefighters found another dog, Fido, under a bed and brought that dog out.

No one was hurt. The owners were not home at the time.

Another night of gun violence in Minneapolis has left one man dead and at least five others wounded in four shootings across the city.

Homicide detectives worked late into the night Tuesday to find the person who fired multiple shots into a car outside River of Life Lutheran Church on the city’s north side.

Two men in the car, both in their 20s, were struck. Police said one died and the other was injured, but is expected to survive.

The shooting was one of at least four across the city Tuesday, the Star Tribune reported. No arrests had been made as of Wednesday morning.

Through Sunday, 222 people had been shot in Minneapolis, a roughly 60 percent increase compared with the same time period in 2019, according to police spokesman Garrett Parten.

“Obviously, this gun violence is extremely concerning,” Parten said at a late-night news conference outside City Hall, while urging those responsible to “embrace the sanctity of life and put down the guns.”

Authorities are looking for a Minneapolis man they charged with murder Wednesday in the fatal shooting of a pregnant woman on Sunday at the George Floyd Memorial site. Officials say the man also shot and injured a witness

According to the criminal complaint, in addition to shooting the mother of his baby dead, Zachary Robinson, 27, also shot and injured a witness at the murder scene. Robinson, who is not in custody, was charged Wednesday with second-degree murder, second-degree assault and felon in possession of a gun, according to Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman.

Police have issued an arrest warrant for Robinson’s arrest.

According to the criminal complaint, police responding to a shooting on July 5 at 38th Street East and Chicago Avenue South found a shot-up Ford Explorer a block away—at 37th Street East and Elliot Avenue.

Leneesha Columbus, 27, was outside the Ford. She had been shot in the upper back, and bystanders were performing life-saving measures. She later died at the hospital but doctors delivered the baby, who is in critical condition, according to a press release by Freeman’s office.

During their investigation, officials learned that Robinson is the baby’s father, according to the complaint.

Witnesses said Robinson and Columbus were arguing near the Ford in a parking lot on Chicago Avenue. Then, as Columbus drove away, Robinson fired several shots at the vehicle. He then returned to the parking lot, sticking the gun in his waistband, according to the complaint.

A man who authorities say was working as a peacekeeper at the George Floyd memorial confronted Robinson in the parking lot, asking him what he was doing. Robinson took out the gun and shot the man in his right foot, according to the complaint.

That man was treated at the hospital for his injury.

According to Freeman’s office, Robinson has a history of felony assaults dating back to 2009 and is prohibited from possessing any firearms or ammunition.

As complaints to St. Paul police increased about “chaos, disorder and criminal activity” at a Lowertown park in recent months, a police commander said they needed to take steps to ensure Mears Park is safe for everyone.

There’s complexity to what’s been drawing homeless people to the park during the coronavirus pandemic, so the response was initially focused on social service agencies offering outreach and some police presence.

But as the groups grew larger — sometimes as many as 50 people — and the problems were “progressively getting worse,” police have lately conducted surveillance to identify who was going to the park to sell drugs, said Senior Cmdr. Jeremy Ellison.

What police saw were “outsiders coming in and taking advantage” of unsheltered people by preying on addictions, said Ellison, who supervises the area that includes downtown. They were selling drugs, mostly K2, which is synthetic marijuana.

Officers carried out an enforcement effort Tuesday night, focusing on drug dealing, and arrested or cited 10 people. Police said they’ll continue to patrol at the park daily and at closing.

DIVISIVE SUBJECT ON SOCIAL MEDIA

The subject of Mears Park has been a divisive one on social media. Some residents have written about the park becoming a scary, threatening place and not what St. Paul needs to revitalize downtown.

People also raised worries about homeless people in the park who did not have another place to go and wondered where they could get help.

Some people cautioned about calling the police, writing that until things change in police departments, the lives of people of color could be in danger.

TRASH CANS DUMPED, FIGHTS, OVERDOSES

When the coronavirus pandemic hit Minnesota in March, workers largely cleared out of downtown St. Paul as they moved to working from home.

“Certainly, there are folks who are experiencing homelessness that are hanging out in the park in a way that they haven’t before,” said Joe Spencer, St. Paul Downtown Alliance president. And the people became more visible because typical events at Mears Park — weddings, music events and festivals — were called off.

Drug use at Mears Park led to activity like people picking up trash cans and dumping them, going to the bathroom in the park, fights and overdoses, according to Ellison.

Officers have been heading to the park for the past several weeks to tell people they need to leave when it’s closed. They’ve offered referrals for the night to a nearby shelter.

Among the people arrested Tuesday night were three men — two from St. Paul and one from Minneapolis — on suspicion of felony sale of narcotics. A man and woman from Inver Grove Heights were taken into custody on suspicion of felony drug possession, and the man was also arrested for allegedly possessing a firearm by a prohibited person.

Mears Park — which is between Fifth and Sixth streets, and Wacouta and Sibley streets — is still open to everyone, including homeless people, from sunrise until 11 p.m. daily, Ellison said.

CONCERNED ABOUT SAFETY

Leslie Thompson, a Lowertown resident for seven years, has regarded Mears Park as her backyard. But lately, she hasn’t felt safe walking her dog in the park after 8 a.m. or so. She said she’s seen empty alcohol bottles and people kick over trash cans in the park.

Thompson walks around the park instead and she’s been thinking about whether she should move elsewhere in St. Paul.

“It seems like the crime in Lowertown is a lot worse than previous years,” she said. “I’ve always felt pretty safe because a lot of people were out and about.”

Police received reports regarding 144 quality-of-life crimes in Lowertown, which includes Mears Park, from June 15 to June 30, compared with 70 during the same time last year, according to Ellison.

For downtown as a whole, there were 53 reports of more serious crime during the second half of June, compared with 21 reports last year. Theft has been the biggest driver of the increase, Ellison said.

OUTREACH TO HELP THOSE IN NEED

Brigette Anderson, who has lived in Lowertown for nearly four years and has a background in social services, said she’s seen the demographics of people hanging out at Mears Park changing — more seem to have chemical dependency and mental health issues. Anderson also views drug dealers as seeking out the park because they know they’ll have a captive audience.

“Some neighbors tend to see that bad element (of the drug dealers) and say, ‘This is all of them and they need to go,'” she said. “The COVID pandemic pushed everything from being underground to … people having no where to go. Now it’s time for people to show what kind of humanity we’re going to have in response to this.”

Anderson has spearheaded community donation efforts and gone to Mears Park almost nightly to hand out new socks, T-shirts, food, water and hygiene kits for people in need. People can contribute to the Lowertown Mask Makers’ effort at paypal.com/pools/c/8ozPNRjX47.

People Incorporated and RADIAS Health, among the groups doing outreach in the park, organized a resource fair at the park last week, which they said they’ll continue. They help people navigate the complicated system of applying for housing and county benefits, according to Dave Katzenmeyer, People Incorporated street outreach program supervisor.

MINNEAPOLIS — Members of the Minneapolis City Council are pledging a thoughtful approach to their proposal to dismantle the city’s police department following the killing of George Floyd.

Council members sought Wednesday to reassure the Minneapolis Charter Commission, with some commissioners expressing concerns that the council was rushing to push through the proposal so voters can decide it in the November election.

The proposal would eliminate the Minneapolis Police Department and replace it with a new agency, the Department of Community Safety and Violence Prevention. The commission needs to sign off on the question by Aug. 21 for it to be possible to make the November ballot.

Council member Alondra Cano told the Charter Commission that the council has tried to reform the police department for the past five years, and she saw all of that work “go down the drain” when Floyd, a handcuffed Black man, died May 25 after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee against Floyd’s neck for nearly eight minutes. Floyd’s death sparked protests around the world.

Commissioner Andrea Rubenstein asked how the council would address people’s fears that the process is rushed and lacks details and planning.

“What we’re actually describing is a much more planful and intentional process than has often been portrayed,” answered council member Steve Fletcher, a co-author of the proposal. He said council staff should come back July 24 with a plan for engaging the public on the proposal.

Council member Jeremiah Ellison said the proposed charter amendment would “allow us to reimagine public safety entirely” and would “change the culture of public safety” by deemphasizing the “use of armed force as a response to every situation.”

Commissioner Dan Cohen said the Charter Commission should hear from the police rank-and-file and its union representative. The amendment would still allow for armed police officers as part of a division of licensed peace officers who would answer to the new department’s director.

“I don’t think this should be framed as an anti-police initiative,” Cano said. She said officers are welcome to be part of the conversation.

The 15-member commission will hold two public hearings on the amendment, including one on July 15.