A Minnesota state representative and her husband were shot and killed, and a state senator and his wife were shot and wounded in an “act of targeted political violence” at their homes early Saturday, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said.
A manhunt is now underway for the gunman who was impersonating a police officer, authorities said. The gunman attacked by knocking on the doors and asking the victims to come out, police said.
State Rep. Melissa Hortman, a Democrat, and her husband were shot and killed in what appears to be a “politically-motivated assassination,” Walz said at a news conference.
“She was a formidable public servant,” the governor said of his friend. “She is irreplaceable.”
State Sen. John Hoffman, a Democrat, and his wife were both shot multiple times and underwent surgery, the governor said. . . .
The two shooting locations are a few miles away from each other in Champlin and Brooklyn Park, just north of Minneapolis.
Hoffman and his wife were shot around 2 a.m. in Champlin, Superintendent of the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Drew Evans said.
After Hoffman was shot, officers were heading to pro-actively check on Hortman when they encountered the suspect at Hortman’s home around 3:35 a.m., Evans said.
The officers found a person who was dressed as a police officer — wearing a vest and a badge, and with a Taser and other equipment — at the door, coming out of Hortman’s house, police said.
The suspect fired at the officers; gunfire was exchanged and the suspect was able to escape and flee on foot, authorities said.
The suspect’s vehicle — which looked like a police vehicle, including police lights — was in Hortman’s driveway, authorities said.
A list of other possible targets was retrieved from the suspect’s vehicle, authorities said. Police said the list had “many lawmakers,” including the victims. . . .
FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said the agency is “fully engaged on the ground in Minnesota.”
UPDATE: This is not yet officially confirmed:
BREAKING: I'm told by a police source in Minnesota the suspect in the shootings of MN state lawmakers is Vance Luther Boelter.
It appears it is the same Boelter who was appointed to the Governor’s Workforce Development Board in 2019 by Gov. Tim Walz. He appointed to the… pic.twitter.com/r1wjWXs2lA
If true, this would be the first clear evidence we have of the gunman’s motive. We await more developments.
UPDATE III: Still more unconfirmed reports:
Police and federal authorities now believe Boelter may have planned the killings to coincide with the nationwide “No Kings” protests, hoping to trigger a wider confrontation with law enforcement. One manifesto reportedly warned of “false kings in suits” and called for “revolution…
A former appointee of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is being sought in connection with the assassination of a state lawmaker and the shooting of another, police sources said.
Vance Luther Boelter allegedly posed as a police officer when he shot Sen. John Hoffman and his wife in their Champlin home early Saturday, leaving them seriously injured before moving on to former Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman’s house — where he is believed to have slaughtered her and her husband, sources told The Post.
Boelter, 57, was appointed by Walz in 2019 to serve a four year stint on the Governor’s Workforce Development Board, documents show.
He previously served on the Governor’s Workforce Development Council in 2016 under then -Gov. Mark Dayton.
The killer had fliers with the words “No Kings” in his car, a reference to Saturday’s planned protests against the Trump Administration, as well as a “manifesto” and a list of other politicians’ names, said police, who briefly cornered the shooter at Hortman’s home before the suspect fled.
Meanwhile, the manhunt for Boelter continues.
UPDATE V: It looks like maybe I jumped the gun a bit here, despite my desire to be cautious about such things. The shooter’s “manifesto” allegedly also listed abortion providers as targets, and some are suggesting that Boelter may be a right-wing extremist, so that the “No Kings” flyers were part of a “false flag” deception. At this point, however, we can’t be certain of his motive. It’s entirely possible he just slipped a cog and went nuts and, as you know, Crazy People Are Dangerous.
If he lives long enough to get out of prison when his sentence expires in 2055, Joseph Javonte Washington will be 60 years old. The taxpayers of Minnesota can do their own cost-benefit analysis in this matter, but a former police officer nearly saved them that cost — and got fired for it.
I’ve watched enough YouTube videos of officer-involved shootings in the past few years that I could probably qualify as an expert witness on the subject by now. Many times, there’s not much to learn from such videos — like, what part of “drop the knife” do I have to explain? At least 90% of the time a suspect gets shot by a cop, there’s no doubt that the shooting was justified, and the deceased criminal is such a menace to society that nothing of value was lost in incident. However, the case of Joseph Javonte Washington is highly instructive in several ways, because (a) he’s a vile monster, but (b) was unarmed when the cop shot him, however (c) he survived the shooting and (d) the cop got fired before the completion of the investigation which (e) found the shooting was justified.
OK, maybe it’s a stretch to say that the investigation found the shooting of Washington was “justified,” but no charges were filed against the officer, and when you consider that this decision was made by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison — yeah, if he could have prosecuted the cop, he certainly would have done it. There are a lot of interesting factors involved in this case, including the fact that Joseph Javonte Washington was stark naked when he got shot, so I’m gonna break it down pretty thoroughly — right after this brief word from our sponsor . . .
Say hello to the Big Yellow Button. Every once in a while, as a service to those readers who might be suffering visual impairment, I super-size the PayPal button, just in case you didn’t notice it before. Also, I rattle the tip jar like this when I find myself in need of some extra cash, which hasn’t been very often lately, as the day job’s been pretty good to me. However, with Fourth of July just a few weeks away, and my fireworks addiction being a monkey on my back, I’m kind of in a bind. Must I approach my dear wife and ask, “Honey, the fireworks store has a buy-one-get-one-free special for Memorial Day weekend, do you mind if I blow a couple hundred dollars?” Because we just got back from our trip to Michigan and Wisconsin for our kids’ graduations, and that wasn’t exactly cheap.
Anyway, to rescue me from that dilemma, readers are invited to chip in whatever they can — just $5 or $10 would help — and thanks in advance. Meanwhile, back to this police shooting in Minnesota . . .
St. Paul ‘community advocate’ Toshira Garraway
It was November 2020, barely six months after George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis touched off nationwide riots, when Joseph Javonte Washington was shot by a cop in neighboring St. Paul:
“No justice no peace, prosecute the police,” and “no good cops in a racist system” were among the chants heard last Friday, Dec. 4 as over 100 people marched down University Avenue in St. Paul demanding former St. Paul cop Anthony Dean be criminally charged following his November 28 shooting of Joseph Javonte Washington.
Washington was naked and unarmed at the time of the shooting and appeared to be experiencing some kind of mental crisis. Dean was fired within days of the shooting by St. Paul Police Chief Todd Axtell.
On the same day, Ramsey County Attorney John Choi referred the case to Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison. . . . “This is not about what happened prior to the incident,” said Toshira Garraway in a speech to the crowd, referring to Washington’s assault on his girlfriend prior to his confrontation with the police. “Police should not add to our pain. They say they are fighting crime, but they are committing crimes.”
Fortunately, this inflammatory rhetoric didn’t incite any rioting because, even in a hotbed of liberalism like St. Paul, most people have enough common sense to consider that maybe it really was “about what happened prior to the incident,” as Ms. Garraway phrased it.
What happened was heinous enough that Washington won’t be getting out of prison for another 30 years, and even Keith Ellison couldn’t find a way to prosecute the cop who shot Washington.
The St. Paul officer who shot an unarmed man did so “to protect his fellow officers and himself” and because he had information that the suspect “claimed to have a gun and had used a knife earlier that evening in a violent assault and rape,” his attorney said Wednesday.
Tony Dean, who the police chief has terminated, was an award-winning officer who reached his dream of becoming a cop in his hometown.
Dean, who graduated in 2001 from St. Paul’s Central High School, was a U.S. Marine for eight years and Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office correctional officer before he was hired as a St. Paul officer in 2014. . . .
“Many attempts by law enforcement to de-escalate the situation using a variety of non-lethal methods were unsuccessful and the suspect did not cooperate,” Dean’s attorney, Robert Paule, said in a statement on Wednesday. . . .
Dean, who initially was a St. Paul patrol officer, was assigned to the gang unit since 2018. . . .
The Minnesota American Legion named Dean as officer of the year in 2016 and Axtell gave him the department’s life-saving award for working with other officers to save a woman who was trying to jump from a bridge in April.
Axtell honored Dean and the gang unit at the start of the year, writing in January that they “displayed diligence, teamwork, professionalism and exemplary investigative work over the past few years” in federal prosecutions against more than 50 people related to firearms crimes involving gang members.
“Officer Dean has led an exemplary career as a law enforcement officer, and has received recognition and accolades for his compassion, commitment to community, and his mentorship of youth in St. Paul,” said Paul Kuntz, St. Paul police union president, in a statement Wednesday.
What happened here? Wouldn’t you think that an officer like Tony Dean, who had been praised just a few months before by the chief, would have deserved the benefit of the doubt? But the political climate had been changed by the George Floyd riots, and the police chief . . . Well, I hesitate to criticize the chief too harshly, but when all the facts are considered, Officer Dean deserves an apology. Here I have to give a big tip of the hat to the Midwest Safety YouTube channel, which had to file an appeal with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) in order to get access to all the records and video footage in this case.
You can and should watch that entire 20-minute video, because the crimes committed by Joseph Javonte Washington were heinous and, when you look at the situation in its totality — Washington was known to have wielded a knife, yelled to cops that he had a gun, etc. — it’s clear that Officer Dean made the best decision possible. Also, I would point out, Officer Dean didn’t do a “mag dump” on Washington. Once the suspect was down, Officer Dean stopped shooting, which is the only reason the suspect survived. By the way, this was the first time in Officer Dean’s entire career that he ever shot anyone, so it’s not as if he could fairly be accused of being trigger-happy. And wow, the details of Washington’s crimes — “what happened prior to the incident” — are horrific:
A judge handed down a nearly 35-year sentence Tuesday [May 13] to a man who sexually assaulted and kidnapped his girlfriend, after which he was shot by a St. Paul police officer during a manhunt.
Dakota County Judge Dannia Edwards said she agreed with the prosecution’s request for a long sentence because Joseph Javonte Washington livestreamed the sexual assault “for the world to see” and because he assaulted the woman in her Lakeville residence, a place where she should have been safe.
After Washington assaulted the woman in November 2020, he instructed her “to drive him at high speeds from Lakeville to St. Paul,” which she did due to “fear and self-preservation,” Assistant Dakota County Attorney Caitie Prokopowicz wrote in a memo to the court. . . .
(OK, I’m interrupting here to point out that it’s about 30 miles from Lakeville to St. Paul, which fact is relevant.)
Washington, now 35, ran and hid in a dumpster behind a funeral home in St. Paul’s North End.
He yelled from the dumpster that he had a gun. The officer who shot him reported that Washington wasn’t fully facing the officers when he jumped out and he couldn’t tell if he was armed, according to prosecutors.
Washington, who was naked, turned out to be unarmed. . . .
Washington punched the woman in the face, breaking her eye socket. He held a knife to her neck and forced her to perform a sex act on him, Prokopowicz said during the trial. The prosecution also said he caused the vehicle to crash as the woman drove him. . . .
Washington previously filed a federal lawsuit against the city of St. Paul and two officers over his shooting, and the lawsuit is ongoing. The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office reviewed the officer’s shooting and announced in 2021 he would not charge him.
Around 6:30 p.m. Saturday [Nov. 28, 2020], Washington’s ex-girlfriend came home to find him waiting inside her Lakeville apartment.
Washington stole her phone and punched her in the face, knocking her head into a TV stand as she fell on the ground.
For the next hour, Washington dragged her from room to room by the hair, sexually assaulting her while brandishing a knife from her kitchen, charges say. Throughout the assault, Washington used her cellphone to record and livestream videos on Facebook and Snapchat. . . .
(This detail is important: He used her phone to livestream the sexual assault on her Facebook and Snapchat accounts, meaning that all of her followers — friends and family — could see it.)
Eventually, Washington forced the victim into her car and told her to drive, without stopping, through red lights. The car crashed into the fence of a Minnoco service station on Maryland Avenue and Rice Street around 8 p.m., after Washington grabbed the steering wheel.
A naked Washington ran from the car. The victim flagged down a passing motorist for help. . . .
(And now, ladies and gentlemen, the kicker.)
His criminal record includes at least three previous felonies for burglary and illegal possession of a firearm as a minor.
How many “second chances” do criminals deserve? How many times must we read news stories about heinous crimes committed by lifelong habitual felons who probably should have still been behind bars? All things considered — especially with Washington forcing the woman at knifepoint to drive at speeds over 100 mph, running red lights — this could be considered attempted murder. Washington was a clear danger to the community, and yet just four days after the shooting, Chief Axtell announced Officer Dean’s firing at a press conference where the chief played a single 44-second clip of body cameras video:
A St. Paul officer who shot and wounded a Black man who emerged naked from a dumpster while being sought in connection with a sexual assault failed to measure up to department standards, the city’s police chief said.
Chief Todd Axtell said Tuesday at a news conference where he released police bodycam video of the confrontation that he’d taken “swift, decisive and serious action” against the officer, identified by state investigators as Officer Anthony Dean.
Axtell said state law precludes him from releasing details of the action. The Minneapolis Star Tribune and St. Paul Pioneer Press, citing law enforcement sources they did not identify, reported that the officer was fired following Saturday night’s shooting of Joseph Javonte Washington. “When I asked myself if the officer’s actions on Saturday night were reasonable and necessary,” Axtell said, “the only answer I could come up with is “No.”
Again, I urge you to watch the 20-minute video from Midwest Safety, which contextualizes the incident thoroughly, in a way that could not have been done after a mere four days. And I cannot emphasize enough that the state’s attorney general, a notorious liberal who served in the Obama administration and who is certainly not pro-police, declined to file charges against Officer Dean:
[T]he investigation by the Attorney General’s Office found that Dean had enough facts at the time to reasonably conclude Washington was capable of inflicting great bodily harm or death upon officers or others in the area, and that Dean took action to protect himself and others.
“Officer Dean stated that he could not see Washington’s hands while in the dumpster, which caused him concern given report of a knife and Washington’s assertion he had a gun,” according to the Attorney General’s report.
Dean declined to comment Saturday. But his attorney, Robert Paule, said Dean was “relieved that justice was served in this matter” and called Axtell’s decision to fire his client “a knee-jerk reaction designed to prevent protests in St. Paul rather than a logical, thoughtful decision.”
Leading up to the incident on Nov. 28, Washington’s ex-girlfriend told officers that he had sexually assaulted, kidnapped and held her at knife point before forcing her to drive from Lakeville to St. Paul and crash her car. She said that Washington was high on drugs.
Later that night, officers attempted to coax a naked Washington out of a dumpster he was hiding in behind a funeral home in the North End. Body camera footage shows him suddenly jumping out of the dumpster and rushing at the officers, getting within 3 feet of Sgt. Kathleen Brown, who was leading the negotiations with him. That’s when Dean, who was assigned to cover Brown, shot Washington.
Dean told investigators that Washington had displayed several characteristics that “reasonably implied his use of narcotics and unpredictability.” Those characteristics included being naked in 40-degree temperatures for more than an hour, breaking into a nearby home to steal orange juice, and not being affected by pepper balls that officers shot at the dumpster where he was hiding.
Washington yelled at officers that he had a gun with him in the dumpster, Dean told the Attorney General’s Office. . . .
Dean told investigators he couldn’t see Washington’s hands as he left the dumpster, so he couldn’t verify that he was unarmed. Though the officers gave Washington a clear path to flee, he chose instead to run directly at them — another highly unusual sign that pointed to his unpredictability and potential for violence, Dean said.
Investigators hired use-of-force expert Jeffrey Noble to review the evidence independently and determine whether Dean’s conduct met generally accepted police practices. Noble determined that Dean’s actions were “objectively reasonable and consistent with generally accepted police practices.”
“Based on these objective facts, the State could not disprove that it was reasonable to believe death or great bodily harm could occur without using deadly force,” the Attorney General’s memo concluded.
“Objectively reasonable” — and we don’t know what would have happened if Officer Dean hadn’t shot Washington. As it was, Officer Dean should have been given an award for his excellent marksmanship, considering that he fired four shots at a moving target, at night, scored two hits, and did not hit either the officers nearby or the police K-9 that was involved in trying to take down Washington.
It was August 2021 when AG Ellison announced there would be no charges against Officer Dean, and two months later, in October 2021, Chief Axtell announced that he would retire after 33 years on the force, effective June 2022. As previously stated, I don’t want to criticize Chief Axtell too harshly. As the St. Paul Pioneer Press noted, Axtell’s six-year term as police chief was a long series of crises, and the chief had to walk a tightrope, especially after the George Floyd riots. I think Officer Dean’s lawyer is correct in saying that he was fired in “a knee-jerk reaction designed to prevent protests,” but I would also say that Chief Axtell sincerely believed he was doing the right thing. And frankly, it seems to me that Chief Axtell was psychologically broken by his experiences.
Imagine what it’s like trying to be cop in the capital city of a liberal state like Minnesota. You’re out there putting your life at risk every day, getting paid less than a school teacher (and a lot less than a politician) and the whole time you have to worry you’ll get into some kind of “incident” like this, where the “community advocate” types like Toshira Garraway demand you get fired and prosecuted. Always, it’s problems with The Community™ that make a cop’s life miserable. He is supposed to “serve and protect” The Community™ and yet cannot avoid noticing that many members of The Community™ (including the Toshira Garraway types) hate his guts and would be happy to see him dead.
Chief Axtell did that job for more than 30 years, rising up through the ranks of the St. Paul PD, and somewhere along the way, alas, I think the Woke Mind Virus took hold. Just before his retirement, Chief Atxell gave a long interview to to the local CBS affiliate, and if you watch the whole thing, you’ll hear the chief start talking a lot of progressive jargon about “disparate impact,” which was the point when I stopped watching, because I can’t stand to see a man humiliate himself that way.
It’s a sad thing to see a veteran cop demoralized, and I suspect many police officers in St. Paul were angry at how swiftly Chief Axtell threw Tony Dean under the bus to appease The Community™.
Washington’s mother, Tonya Comer, said the officer could have killed her son when he shot him.
“My son was unarmed, he had no weapons and he suffers from a mental health condition,” Comer said Friday. “… I want that police officer charged. … My son is being dragged through the mud for something he didn’t even do.”
Ma’am, your son already had three felony convictions before that night, and he livestreamed the sexual torture of a woman using her own phone. Yet here you are trying to claim “he didn’t even do” it? Portraying him as some kind of victim, making excuses about his “mental health condition,” and demanding that the officer be charged, despite the clear results of the investigation that found the officer did nothing wrong? Why anyone would sign up to “protect and serve” such people is a mystery to me. Some people just don’t deserve good cops, and the entire Community™ in St. Paul, Minnesota, can go straight to hell, for all I care.
* * * * * *
Well, that’s more than 3,000 words, but I figured on a Memorial Day weekend, maybe you had time to read the whole story. Also, because Officer Tony Dean is a Marine Corps veteran, Memorial Day weekend is a good time for remembering that not all heroes wear capes. But I’m not a hero, just a guy who tells stories for a living, and I disclaim any motive other than the one Samuel Johnson bluntly described: “No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.” That Memorial Day weekend sale at the fireworks store is beckoning me, so once again I ask readers to recall the Five Most Important Words in the English Language:
Shiloh Hendrix was at a park in Rochester, Minnesota, when she says a child stole something from her infant son’s diaper bag. In response, she called the child the n-word, and was then confronted by a man who recorded her on video. That video went viral, as a result of which Hendrix was doxxed and threatened. So she put up a fundraiser with a goal of $1,000 to enable her to relocate for her family’s safety.
As of 9 a.m. ET this morning, she’d raised more than $500,000.
Man, if saying the n-word is worth $500,000, I know some people who would be richer than Bill Gates. But beyond the cheap laughs, what exactly is going on here? In part, I think it’s a reaction to the absurdity of a Kamelo Anthony fundraiser that collected more than $500,000. Some people are just fed up — they are sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Far be it from me to endorse or encourage rudeness. We should strive to be courteous and civil, even when provoked. Keeping a “stiff upper lip” in crisis situations is a duty that a gentleman ought never neglect. Yet courtesy, properly understood, is rooted in empathy, and it strikes me as curious that in 21st-century America, lower-class whites are somehow seen as undeserving of the kind of empathy that we are usually expected to extend to the poor. J.D. Vance would understand this, I think. His memoir Hillbilly Elegy is about the plight of poor whites in an era when our elite find it convenient to pretend that such people don’t exist, or that the problems of poor whites are unworthy of concern as a matter of public policy. And guess what? That’s how you get more Trump.
Predictably, the mainstream media are oblivious to this aspect of the Shiloh Hendrix saga. The media narrative is about “white nationalists” using her as a rallying cry, and I suppose that every liberal commentator in the country who hasn’t already written a column about it will have such a column online by Monday. Instead of shrieking about the menace of “white nationalists,” however, intelligent people should be asking questions about the underlying conditions that inspire such attitudes.
It has not escaped my notice that some people on social media are claiming that the man who recorded the video is a Somali immigrant who has been charged with raping a 16-year-old. While I cannot verify that claim, (a) it’s obvious the man recording the video has some kind of foreign accent, (b) obviously there are Somali immigrants in Rochester, Minnesota, and (c) some of these immigrants are implicated in crimes.
The Somali community in Rochester, Minnesota is well-served by various organizations providing support and services. The Rochester Somali Community Center (RSCC) is a prominent immigrant-led, minority-run organization that offers services focused on self-sufficiency and cultural preservation. Additionally, the Somali Community Resettlement Services (SCRS) provides assistance with basic needs, resources, and acclimation to American life. Other organizations and initiatives contribute to the Somali community’s well-being in Rochester.
Is this relevant to the Shiloh Hendrix story? Perhaps so, but there is no “Rochester White Community Center” to give us that side of the story.
Folks, if Donald Trump wins in November, today will be remembered as the day that the 2024 election shifted decisively in his favor. While vice-presidential picks rarely affect the outcome of an election (Thomas Eagleton being perhaps the most egregious exception to that rule), Kamala Harris could have made the Electoral College (EC) arithmetic very difficult for Trump if she had chosen Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as her running mate. Pennsylvania has 19 EC votes (tied with Illinois as the fifth-largest state) and Shapiro is so popular in the state, it would have made it effectively impossible for Trump to compete there. But snubbing Shapiro, Harris automatically puts those 19 EC votes in play. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz adds no such obvious advantage for the Democrats; in theory, his Midwestern appeal might help Harris in Wisconsin (10 EC votes) and Michigan (15 EC votes), but that’s not nearly as clear-cut as what the Shapiro/Pennsylvania play would have added.
And, of course, there’s the Jewish thing. A week or so ago, when the “short list” of VP contenders was much longer, my brother Kirby more or less predicted that Harris would not pick Shapiro, simply because such a choice would alienate the anti-Semitic segment of the Democratic Party’s coalition. I thought North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper might have a shot but, again, Kirby correctly predicted that wouldn’t happen, because Harris looks likely to lose, and Cooper doesn’t want that stain on his resumé. When the name of Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly was floated as one of the finalists, I was skeptical — really, a bald 60-year-old? — but then Walz was mentioned, and I was like, are you kidding me with this?
However much Harris might want to pander to the pro-Hamas college kids, and the “uncommitted” voters in Dearborn, surely, I thought, the advantages of picking Shapiro were obvious enough.
Hello, Jewish money? Not to play into any stereotypes here, but the Democratic Party collects many millions of dollars in contributions from Jewish donors every year, and with the current situation in the Middle East, one might think that Harris would wish to reassure those donors that the party was still pro-Israel. Because guess what? Trump was arguably the most pro-Israel president ever, and there’s no guarantee that all that money’s going to keep going to Democrats if Democrats are going to be sucking up to the anti-Jewish mobs we’ve seen at Columbia, Harvard and other elite universities. As much as losing Pennsylvania in one election would hurt Democrats, how much worse would they be hurt by alienating Jews permanently? So I was honestly startled this morning when it was announced that Harris had picked Walz and, of all people, CNN’s Van Jones shared my feelings:
Look, Josh Shapiro is a class act from beginning to end. He’s a rising star in this party. He’s done an extraordinary job. . . .
Republicans, they were chewing their fingernails down to the knuckle because they were afraid of a Josh Shapiro, they were afraid of a Mark Kelly, they’re not as afraid of [Walz] . . . [H]ere’s the challenge you’ve got in this party, and you know, people don’t want to talk about it — we got to talk about it.
On the one hand, you have a lot of young people who are concerned about Gaza. You have a lot of Muslims and Arabs and others, they have not felt seen by the Biden administration. You started hearing that genocide joke, that was building that was building and so those folks needed to have a candidate that they could feel comfortable with. This helps him in that regard. But you also have anti-Semitism that has gotten marbled into this party. You can be for the Palestinians without being an anti-Jewish bigot. But there are some anti-Jewish bigots out there and there’s some disquiet now and there has to be. How much of what just happened is caving into some of these darker parts in the party? So that’s going to have to get worked out. It’s going to have to get talked through.
Van Jones admits that Kamala picking Walz was her "caving in to some of these darker parts in the party" in terms of appeasing "anti-Jewish bigots" that have "gotten marbled into this party." pic.twitter.com/UTspmYkFfF
July 31 ought to be an annual holiday in Minnesota, to celebrate the heroism of Minnesota State Trooper Ryan Londregan, who made the world a better place when he fatally shot career criminal Ricky Cobb II.
It was 2 o’clock in the morning when troopers pulled over Cobb on I-94 north of downtown Minneapolis last July 31. There was a warrant for Cobb’s arrest in neighboring Ramsey County for violating a domestic violence protection order. Cobb, 33, had an extensive criminal record, and probably should have never been released from prison.
Among other things, Cobb had a tattoo declaring his affiliation with a north Minneapolis gang, the “1-9 Block Dipset Gang,” notorious for drug dealing and deadly street violence against rivals. But Cobb was not merely a local menace. He had charges in several different counties. The mug shot at the top of this post is from Cobb’s arrest in a 2013 bar brawl in St. Cloud, 65 miles north of Minneapolis. Ricky Cobb was a statewide one-man crime wave. Wherever he went, crime happened.
Did I mention that Ricky Cobb was a menace to women? He was twice convicted (in 2014 and 2017) of felony domestic assault by strangulation. He was then convicted in 2018 of being a felon in possession of a firearm, and sentenced to five years in prison. When he appealed his sentence, the court’s response was basically, “LOL.” And there’s much more about Ricky Cobb’s lifelong career of criminal violence:
The criminal complaint in the 2017 Wright County strangulation case describes a violent episode during an argument with the mother of one of Cobb’s children in which he reportedly punched her in the face several times and grabbed her by the neck, causing her to not be able to breathe. When the victim made two attempts to escape the apartment, Cobb blocked her and again strangled her both times. The victim was holding their 6-month-old baby during at least one of the attacks, the complaint said. . . .
Cobb also had two convictions for violating domestic abuse no contact orders, as well as a handful of other convictions for theft, false information to police, marijuana possession in a vehicle, and driving after suspension.
Court records show that Cobb pled guilty [in July 2023] in Anoka County Court to a felony count of providing false information to police as a predatory offender. Cobb had been out of custody on zero bail awaiting a September sentencing hearing in the case. The plea agreement specified that in exchange for the guilty plea, Cobb’s defense counsel would argue for a departure from sentencing guidelines. The case was charged last October, and the complaint stated that Cobb was required to register as a predatory offender as a result of a 2018 Wright County case. Two of Cobb’s prior domestic cases were out of Wright County: the 2017 domestic strangulation case, and one of the cases involving violation of a no contact order.
Cobb’s three felony convictions would have prohibited him from legally possessing firearms under Minnesota law.
A further search of Minnesota civil court records show Cobb was in court in May of [2023] fighting a child support order initiated in 2017 when Cobb was incarcerated. The order was finalized in May in favor of the petitioner and against Cobb. . . .
Other court records show that the petitioner in the child support/paternity case received an order for protection on behalf of themself and the two children in December 2021. In granting the order for protection, the court document stated that “the court finds by a preponderance of the evidence that [Cobb] poses an imminent risk of causing another person substantial bodily harm and [pursuant to statute] the local law enforcement agency shall take immediate possession of all firearms in [Cobb’s] possession.”
All of this is preamble to the bizarre “controversy” surrounding Trooper Londregan’s fatal shooting of Ricky Cobb. The district attorney in Hennepin County is a left-wing Democrat named Mary Moriarty.
“How left-wing is she?” you ask. So left-wing that, when Moriarty approved a plea deal that gave a slap on the wrist to two teenage killers for murdering Zaria McKeever in November 2022, she was criticized by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who is one of the most left-wing public officials on the planet. There’s “soft on crime” (which most Democrats are) and then there’s “too soft on crime for Keith Ellison,” which is a whole different Bonus Level of soft-on-crime.
In January, Mary Moriarty charged Trooper Londregan with three felonies — second-degree unintentional murder, first-degree assault, and second-degree manslaughter: “Our hearts are with Ricky Cobb’s family today, who are grieving an unimaginable loss. I know that they are devastated and will continue to feel this loss for the rest of their lives.”
Like I said, this is a whole different Bonus Level of soft-on-crime and, even in a reliably Democrat state like Minneapolis, people were outraged by Moriarty’s action. In March, after Londregan’s lawyers accused Moriarty’s office of ignoring the opinion of an expert who said the trooper’s “use of force was reasonable since the trooper thought his colleagues’ lives were in danger,” Minnesota’s Democratic Gov. Tim Walz — who is certainly not a conservative — said he was considering taking the case away from Moriarty’s office. In case you didn’t know it, there’s an election in November, and polls show Joe Biden just barely leading Donald Trump in Minnesota. The last thing Democrats in Minnesota need is for the anti-cop prosecutor in Minneapolis to be pushing cases that remind voters of how soft-on-crime Democrats are.
This probably explains why, under pressure from Democrats who aren’t as batshit crazy as she is, Mary Moriarty found an excuse to decide, on second thought, maybe Trooper Londregan isn’t a murderer:
The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office announced Sunday that Mary Moriarty has filed to dismiss the case against Minnesota State Trooper Ryan Londregan in the killing of Ricky Cobb II.
Moriarty filed a notice to dismiss charges against Londregan, saying defense lawyers presented many new pieces of evidence that made it “impossible” to prove that the shooting death of Cobb II was not an authorized use of force incident by Londregan.
Prosecutors dropped the case after hearing new testimony from Londregan, where he claimed he saw Cobb II reach for his firearm shortly before Londregan fired gunshots that ultimately killed Cobb. Also, prosecutors say a Minnesota State Patrol trainer claimed he never instructed officers to hold back from shooting into a moving car while trying to get a suspect out of the car but said refraining from firing at a moving car is “best practice.”
After these testimonies, and working with a use of force expert, Moriarty and prosecutors in the case decided to dismiss the case. . . .
“Open season on law enforcement needs to end – on the streets and in the courtroom. Trooper Londregan should have never been charged, and we are glad this political case is over. Enough is enough,” Minnesota Police and Peace Officer Association (MPPOA) Executive Director Brain Peters said in a statement about the dismissal.
“It was clear months ago that Ms. Moriarty was abusing her position to wrongfully charge Trooper Londregan. When she refused to listen to the facts of the case and the law, we asked Governor Walz to step in and remove the case from her jurisdiction. Finally, after many months of unnecessary strife, Ms. Moriarty has come to the same conclusion that the experts did: that Trooper Londregan was completely justified in his use of force to protect his partner’s life.
“We still share the same concerns we expressed to the Governor, as well as the House Judiciary Committee, about Ms. Moriarty’s active work to demonize law enforcement. We are committed to doing everything we can to protect our brave officers from corrupted officials like her.”
Good. Now make July 31 a statewide holiday in Minnesota.
Sunday evening, I was riding in the car with my brother Kirby, scrolling through the news on my phone, puzzled that police in Minnesota had not yet named the gunman who killed two cops and a paramedic in the Minneapolis suburb of Burnsville. The gunman also died during the incident, so that identifying him could not possibly interfere with the investigation. Nor was there any reason for the news media to refrain from naming the gunman, because dead men don’t file libel lawsuits. When we got back to the house, it didn’t take too much work to find that the gunman had already been identified by Alpha News.
Several sources have identified Shannon Cortez Gooden, 38, as the deceased suspect in the shooting today that killed 2 Burnsville police officers and a fire medic. He petitioned to have his gun rights restored in 2020 in relation to a 2008 felony assault conviction. pic.twitter.com/dqtDo6VHrX
That was 9:34 p.m. Sunday, about 18 hours after the shooting in Burnsville. A bit more digging enabled me to confirm that Shannon Gooden lived in the same black of 33rd Avenue where the Burnsville shooting happened, and there are also online records of Gooden’s previous court cases related to a child custody dispute. According to one online account (which I can’t confirm), Gooden’s wife caught him having sex with his 14-year-old stepdaughter, which was the reason police had been dispatched to the residence. But whatever the facts of the case may be, police have acknowledged that the perpetrator of the shooting is dead, and yet won’t name him publicly — and the mainstream news media appears perfectly willing to go along with this.
The motive for such a cover-up is . . . mysterious.
4/ Shannon Gooden's ex-wife says Ramsey County courts awarded custody of their three children to Gooden. pic.twitter.com/H6JIb5wKWc
The suspect is obviously known to law enforcement. Why hasn’t he been identified? Your guess is as good as mine. The Star Tribune has the bylines of five reporters (count ’em) on its current story, but nothing on the identity of the suspect.
This isn’t mere laziness. It’s journalistic negligence.
The man who fatally shot two Burnsville police officers and a firefighter was a 38-year-old who pleaded guilty to assault with a dangerous weapon from a 2007 case. He petitioned the court in 2020 to have his gun rights restored, which a judge denied.
Shannon Cortez Gooden was found dead in the home, where he was a renter, according to law enforcement sources and other records.
Law enforcement said Sunday that “several guns and large amounts of ammunition” were found in the home, which Burnsville police were dispatched to about 1:50 a.m. Sunday. Someone in the house in the 12600 block of 33rd Avenue South called 911, Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Superintendent Drew Evans said during a Sunday news conference.
When officers arrived, the armed suspect was barricaded inside the home with family members, including seven children between the ages of 2 and 15, Evans said.
After talking with police negotiators for “quite a bit of time,” the suspect opened fire on officers who were inside the home, and multiple officers returned fire, according to Evans. During the shootout, the gunman fired from several locations inside the house, fatally striking Burnsville officers Paul Elmstrand, 27, and Matthew Ruge, also 27, and firefighter/paramedic, Adam Finseth, 40. Sgt. Adam Medlicott was also injured.
Police received a report about 8 a.m. Sunday that the suspect was dead inside the house. A person with knowledge of the matter said the gunman died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The suspect will be officially identified by the medical examiner, but law enforcement sources confirmed to the Pioneer Press Monday that he was Gooden. A court filing in a civil matter showed Gooden was served at the 33rd Avenue address in December.
A relative of Gooden’s said the family didn’t want to comment Monday.
So now the news media embargo on the gunman’s identity has been broken, and the story will now disappear from the national headlines.
In October 2019 at the University of Minnesota, a student was studying in the medical library at Diehl Hall when he grew uneasy by Garcia watching him. After speaking with security, the student was stabbed in the leg from behind by a hypodermic needle.
The criminal complaint said when police found a man matching the description of the attacker, later identified as Garcia, he pulled out a long knife and fought with officers. One officer was wounded by the knife.
After it was learned Garcia was positive for Hepatitis C, the student and the officer were both prescribed preventative medications. . . .
After that incident, Garcia was temporarily civilly committed with a doctor pointing to “methamphetamine-induced psychotic disorder,” among other mental and chemical dependency disorders. A judge wrote Garcia “poses a substantial likelihood of causing physical harm” as a result.
Despite these grievous felonies, Garcia was discharged from probation in late 2022, just three years later. Nor was this an isolated incident. Garcia has had 46 separate criminal charges in the past five years, and that was before what happened in November:
Authorities have charged a Minneapolis man with murder, alleging he fatally stabbed another man at a bus stop in Edina last week.
Adam Garcia, 32, faces one count of second-degree murder in connection with the killing of 62-year-old Chris Lundegaard, according to court documents filed in Hennepin County. . . .
Edina police officers were at the Cub Foods on York Avenue when the stabbing occurred outside, according to a criminal complaint. They went to the bus stop to investigate and found Lundegaard “bleeding from multiple stab wounds,” the complaint states. Officers attempted to save his life before he was taken to a hospital, where he later died. A medical examiner identified five stab wounds, two to Lundegaard’s chest.
Officers found the suspect, identified as Garcia, at the scene and detained him while they reviewed surveillance video and spoke to witnesses.
The video showed “a confrontation” between Garcia and Lundegaard at the bus stop, the complaint states. Lundegaard tried multiple times to get away from Garcia, but Garcia allegedly would not leave Lundegaard alone. At one point, according to the complaint, there was a “scuffle” between the two that ended with Lundegaard “knocked to the ground.” . . .
Court records show Garcia has a criminal record that includes several convictions over the past four years for burglary, assault, trespassing and property damage.
How was this guy on the street? He should have been in a padded cell, strapped into a straitjacket and given twice daily dose of Thorazine for the rest of his life. What part of “substantial likelihood of causing physical harm” do I need to explain here? And now this:
The suspect in November’s seemingly random, deadly stabbing at an Edina Bus stop was back in court Monday. . . .
Adam Garcia asked the judge for a speedy trial on charges that he murdered Chris Lundegaard the night before Thanksgiving.
But judge Peter Cahill told Garcia, who has a long history of mental health issues, that he will first need to be evaluated to see if he’s competent to stand trial.
Padded cell, straitjacket, etc. This dangerous kook should never be allowed in public again. Crazy People Are Dangerous.
Sam Brinton is self-evidently crazy. He is daft, deranged, bonkers, berserk, a few fries short of a Happy Meal and cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.
Exactly why Joe Biden would appoint this lunatic to a job working with nuclear technology in the Department of Energy — well, Democrats do crazy things all the time, and appointing a “genderfluid” kook to be Deputy Assistant Secretary is probably about par for the course.
The incident allegedly occurred at Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP) International Airport on September 16 when a woman arriving from New Orleans went to the baggage carousel only to find that her navy blue Vera Bradley roller bag was missing. . . .
Law enforcement at the Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP) International Airport were alerted to a missing suitcase in the baggage claim area on Sept. 16. The adult female victim said she flew into MSP on a Delta flight from New Orleans and went to retrieve her checked bag at carousel seven.
Airport records confirmed the navy blue Vera Bradley roller bag arrived at 4:40 p.m. but was missing from the carousel. So law enforcement reviewed video surveillance footage from the baggage claim area and observed Brinton removing a navy blue roller bag from carousel seven, according to a criminal complaint.
The complaint says Brinton removed a luggage tag from the bag, placed it into a handbag he was carrying, and “then left the area at a quick pace.” Brinton arrived at MSP Airport around 4:27 p.m. on an American Airlines flight from Washington, D.C., but did not check a bag, meaning he had no reason to visit baggage claim, according to the complaint.
The female victim, who estimated the bag cost $2,325, confirmed to police that the navy blue bag that Brinton took in the surveillance footage indeed belonged to her. Brinton later took an Uber to the InterContinental St. Paul Riverfront hotel where he checked in with the blue bag, according to the criminal complaint. He later returned to the airport on September 18 with the same bag in hand when he departed for Washington, DC.
On October 9, police questioned Brinton about the bag and if he “took anything that did not belong” to him. Brinton reportedly responded, “Not that I know of.”
“If I had taken the wrong bag, I am happy to return it, but I don’t have any clothes for another individual. That was my clothes when I opened the bag,” he told the police.
Two hours after the interview, Brinton then allegedly called the investigating officer and admitted to not being “completely honest.” According to Brinton, he mistakenly took the navy blue bag due to him being tired from his trip and “got nervous” upon realizing that the bag belonged to someone else when arriving at his hotel room. Not knowing what to do, Brinton then allegedly told police that he left the woman’s clothes in the hotel room drawers and took the bag with him anyway in order to keep up appearances.
Brinton has allegedly not returned the bag to the female victim and police said no clothing was recovered from the hotel room. His first court hearing is scheduled for December 19 in Hennepin County.
Ace of Spades had fun with the shifting stories told by Brinton. I’m dubious of the claim that the stolen bag and its contents were worth more than $2,000, because you can get a Vera Bradley bag for about $500, and who puts $1,500 worth of stuff in their luggage? But the biggest question is why would Brinton steal somebody’s luggage? You’re a Deputy Assistant Secretary and you’re acting like some kind of petty thief?
It doesn’t make sense, but that’s just the way it is with lunatics — their behavior doesn’t make sense, like when 81 million people decided that Joe Biden should be President of the United States, a completely crazy choice that has had predictably crazy consequences.
