Crime and Law

Edward Trondell Baker ID'd in latest south Minneapolis homicide

​Edward Trondell Baker has been identified as the man who was shot early Tuesday in the 5700 block of Sander Avenue, just a few blocks north of Highway 62 and the perimeter of Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport. The Hennepin County medical examiner said the 24-year-old man died of multipl ... More >>

Man shot and killed in south Minneapolis

​An unidentified man was shot and killed early this morning in south Minneapolis, in the 5700 block of Sander Avenue, which is a few blocks north of Highway 62 and the perimeter of Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport. Minneapolis police say the man was alice when they reached him, and ... More >>

Watch Nick Ayers, Tim Pawlenty's presidential campaign manager, get arrested for DWI [VIDEO]

Nick Ayers as he would like you to see him.​It was well known, even before Tim Pawlenty hired him to manage his presidential campaign, that Nick Ayers was pulled over and arrested for DWI in 2006. What hasn't been available for the public to view, until now, is the dash cam video of that arrest. ... More >>

Liz Neuman's family settles with Arizona sweat lodge owners

Liz Neuman's family has settled with the owners of the retreat where she died​The owners of the Arizona retreat where Liz Neuman died after a sweat lodge disaster directed by a New Age guru have settled a civil lawsuit filed by her family. In October 2009, the Prior Lake woman was one of three p ... More >>

Derrick Griffin, minister, charged with murdering Kristopher Miller

Kristopher Miller was shot dead on May 11.​Derrick Griffin, an associate pastor at the North Side's True Vine Missionary Baptist Church, has been charged with murdering North High School staffer Kristopher Miller, who was found shot dead in front of his home last week. Griffin, 40, was arrested l ... More >>

Derreck Griffin, minister, arrested in Kristopher Miller's shooting death

Kristopher Miller was a popular North High staffer.​Minneapolis police have arrested 40-year-old Derreck Griffin, an associate pastor at True Vine Missionary Baptist Church on the city's north side, in connection with Kristopher Miller's shooting death early Tuesday morning. Griffin, who is ... More >>

Keontrell Govan's shooting death: Ishmael Rashad Moore, Dashaunta D'Mar Gomez charged

​Ishmael Rashad Moore and Dashaunta D Mar Gomez, both 17, have been charged in the shooting death of 18-year-old Keontrell Govan. Police found Govan with a bullet in his head last Wednesday afternoon in the alley behind the Church of St. Bridget in North Minneapolis. Medics rushed him to Nort ... More >>

Man dies after North Minneapolis shooting

​Minneapolis police say that a man found shot and unresponsive late Wednesday, on the 3800 block of Emerson Avenue North, died of his wounds yesterday at North Memorial Medical Center. MPD spokesman Stephen McCarty had no information this morning about the man's identity. The Homicide Unit i ... More >>

Michael Lewis Johnson accused in two Ford Parkway bank heists

Caught on camera, Feb. 3.​After the robber strolled into the TCF Bank branch on Ford Parkway on Feb. 3 in broad daylight, right under the gaze of security cameras, we speculated that he either didn't care whether his moves were recorded, or he just wasn't very smart. Turns out both observations m ... More >>

Kurt Zellers, House Speaker, flunks Voting Rights 101

Kurt Zellers gets voting rights wrong.​Republicans are trying to rebrand themselves as "constitutional conservatives" these days, as if they are the only true adherents to our nation's founding principles and documents. So it was a little jarring yesterday to hear Republican House Speaker Kurt Ze ... More >>

Dave MacLaughlin is Pawlenty's third drunk-driving hire

Dave MacLaughlin, from his days in city government.​Tim Pawlenty's campaign is hiring drunk drivers so consistently that you have to wonder if it's one of his application criteria. Today, Pawlenty named a number of operatives to his New Hampshire steering committee, including Dave MacLaughlin ... More >>

Dennis Dzuck sued for assault on Fridley High student

Dzuck's lawyer warns the case is still young.​The mother of a Fridley High School student is suing a former teacher she says beat her son bloody in the principal's office two years ago. Dennis Dzuck was convicted of assaulting a 15-year-old student last year, and was placed on two years of pr ... More >>

Nick Ayers, Pawlenty's new campaign manager, was charged with drunk driving in 2006

kennesaw.eduNick Ayers, Pawlenty's new campaign manager.​At this point, you've got to wonder if Tim Pawlenty has a thing for guys who drink and drive. Less than a week after his Iowa staffer Ben Foster attempted to break into an unsuspecting Iowa family's home, puked on the lawn, and then pla ... More >>

Stephanie Smith ID'd as fourth Minneapolis homicide victim of 2011

​The woman shot dead Monday night in South Minneapolis has been identified as 21-year-old Stephanie Smith. The MCTC psychology student was riding in a car on Park Avenue South with an unidentified man when someone opened fire from another vehicle. Minneapolis police were already responding to ... More >>

Gregory Scott Tyler and Orlando Ray Vasquez are TCF Bank robbers

Minneapolis PDCops says this is Orlando Ray Vasquez robbing a TCF teller.​The Feds say Orlando Ray Vasquez, 40, and Gregory Scott Tyler robbed TCF bank on West Lake Street on Feb. 28. But they're not that bank robber. Vasquez and Tyler just bothered with one bank in St. Paul. The man who rob ... More >>

Michael John Husten is a TCF bank robber

Michael John Husten robbed TCF​Minneapolis police say 60-year-old Michael John Husten is a TCF Bank robber. Unfortunately, Husten is not that TCF robber. Since January, TCF Bank has been hit with robberies four times--three within a single week. Husten was charged Friday with robbing a Minneapol ... More >>

William Holden must pay $10.5 million for sexually abusing niece

William Holden, child rapist, outside the St. Cloud courthouse​William Holden went to prison for sexually abusing his underage niece. Now, a jury says he must pay her $10 million. Cathy Olson was under the age of 14 when Holden sexually assaulted her three times in Brainerd. He was convicted ... More >>

TFC Bank on West Lake Street robbed in broad daylight

FBISecurity cameras caught the robber in the act.​A bank robber and his getaway driver left injuries and destruction in the wake of a holdup Monday at the Uptown TCF Bank branch at 1444 West Lake Street. The FBI says the robber, wearing a red ball cap, walked up to a teller at about 9 a.m., a ... More >>

Jeremee Jon Kraskey shot dead in South Minneapolis

​Jeremee Jon Kraskey became the third Minneapolis homicide victim of 2011 when police found his body early Saturday morning in a back yard less than a block from Powderhorn Park. He died of multiple gun shot wounds, according to the Hennepin County Medical Examiner.

U of M frat council orders members to attend sexual violence presentation

Attendance is optional to the U of M's presentation on how to prevent sexual violence.​University of Minnesota fraternities earned a pretty bad rep last fall after three women alleged they were sexual assaulted at frat parties in the span of three weeks. As a reaction, a U of M administrator ... More >>

Roseville InterBank robbers caught on camera

The two men are suspected in a string of suburban robberies.​Two guys in ski masks ran into an InterBank branch in Roseville on Wednesday morning. One of them whipped out a semi-automatic handgun, pointed it at an employee, and demanded she open the safe. "No funny money," one of the two men ... More >>

Kenneth Lee Johnson sentenced in Anthony Titus's murder

​Anthony Titus was 16 years old when he was gunned down in an alley near Fremont Avenue N. last Fourth of July, the city's 26th homicide of the year. Minneapolis police say he and his friends were "mean mugged" by some gang-bangers in an SUV because one of the guys hanging out with Titus was ... More >>

Rep. Glenn Gruenhagen excited about farmyard castration for sex offenders [AUDIO]

vetmoves.comFarmyard justice?​With the costs of Minnesota's sex-offender treatment program spiking, one legislator wants to consider a solution grounded in our state's fine agricultural history: castration. Rep. Glenn Gruenhagen introduced his preference for farmyard justice when staff from the M ... More >>

Congress reconsiders rape redefinition bill supported by Bachmann, Kline, Cravaack and Peterson

Ok, ok! Rape is rape.​Maybe they were just trying to get a rise out of us? Legislators are backing off the move we told you about last week that would have narrowed the cases in which victims of rape would be eligible for publicly funded abortions. Minnesota representatives supported the bil ... More >>

Bachmann, Kline, and Cravaak want to redefine rape because of abortion funding

Congress wants to exclude protection for victims of non-"forcible rape."​They ran for office talking about jobs and the economy, but some of Minnesota's Republican congressional reps are wading right in to one of the ugliest corners of the culture wars. Minnesota representatives Michele Bachmann, ... More >>

Marlon Alejandro Lozano-Montano charged with shooting Guadalupe Galeno-Hernandez

helpguadalupe.comGuadalupe Galeno Hernandez was shot in November. Doctors say she will never walk again.​Casey Walters admitted last week that she was behind the wheel when a gunman opened fire from her car on a group of kids in South Minneapolis, paralyzing 12-year-old Guadalupe Galeno-Hernan ... More >>

Brian Coyle Center shooting leaves two Somali men wounded

Ahmednur Ali was shot and killed at the Brian Coyle Center in Sept. 2008​A drive-by shooting outside Brian Coyle Community Center last night left two Somali men wounded and rekindled fears about gang violence. Neither the victims nor the suspects have been named by police. One of the injured ... More >>

Timothy Carson, troubled ex-cop, sentenced for robbery spree

Timothy Carson: All the shit hit the fan at once.​Timothy Carson, the Minneapolis Police SWAT team member who carved a swath of violent robberies through Hennepin and Dakota counties last year, will serve 122 months in prison. Carson is already serving an eight-year federal sentence in Texas ... More >>

Antonin Scalia: Constitution doesn't protect Michele Bachmann

WikiAntonin Scalia: The 14th Amendment for me, but not thee.​ When Michele Bachmann bragged to Lou Dobbs that she'd talked the Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia into teaching teabaggers the Constitution, solo, did she know that Scalia didn't believe the document protects her from discrimin ... More >>

Laurence Charette arrested in Duluth for Walgreens robbery spree

A thorn in Walgreen's side.​Okay, so he's not as snicker-inducing as the Unibrow robber, who made headlines for his Frida Kahlo-like brows earlier this year. But to Walgreens, Laurence John Charette has been just as much of a headache. Walgreens has been plagued with pharmacy robberies in recent ... More >>

The Feds Bury Border Patrol Abuses of Immigrants, But What's Been Unearthed Reveals a Culture of Cruelty

Walgreens becoming an easy target for pharmacy holdups

16 of 19 Minneapolis drugstore robberies took place at Walgreens

John Bullock and Damonta Jones allegedly raped victim with live snake

Photo: felixfrancierJohn D. Bullock and Damonta D. Jones are charged with first-degree sexual assault.​We thought the story about the Wisconsin freaks who dug up a dead woman for sex was vile enough. But this story out of Eau Claire is even worse: John D. Bullock and Damonta D. Jones have been ... More >>

Jeremy Giefer could be Tim Pawlenty's Willie Horton

Blue Earth County Sheriff's Dept.Jeremy Giefer, once pardoned by the Governor, now faces 11 charges of criminal sexual conduct​When Jeremy Geifer was charged with 11 counts of sexual misconduct November 18th, Tim Pawlenty might have envisioned his presidential ambitions going up in smoke.Just over ... More >>

Steve Horner sues to stop ladies' night

Horner's been on a quest to criminalize ladies' night for 20 years

Operation Streamline: An immigration boondoggle

Project Costs Millions, Tramples the Constitution, Treats Migrants Like Cattle, and Doesn't Work

Timothy Carson pleads guilty again

Timothy Carson​Timothy Carson, the former Marine and Minneapolis cop turned robber, has pleaded guilty to a last round of crimes: Five counts of first-degree aggravated robbery and two counts of first-degree attempted aggravated robbery, in Dakota County.

Jarso Yohannes Adem's acid attack was part of a trend

Jarso Johannes Adem: Part of the problem.​Jarso Yohannes Adem has admitted he threw battery acid on his former girlfriend in St. Louis Park because he couldn't handle her rejection It's the kind of growing violence we usually read about coming out of places like Afghanistan, South Asia or Afr ... More >>

Tom Emmer campaign alcohol problems keep getting worse

Mark Buesgens: Part of a booze problem in the Emmer campaign.​This is starting to look like a pattern. Following state Rep. Mark Buesgen's arrest Saturday on drunken driving charges, Tom Emmer now has to deal with four separate stories involving members and former members of his campaign, an ... More >>

Asylum Denied

Only a fraction of Mexicans get U.S. asylum

Jason Lee Reinartz is a meth menace to Austin

Image by Jonathunder, WikipediaReitzman's future was bright, other than that 500 grams of meth thing.​Just two years ago, the future looked promising for Jason Lee Reinartz. He had just opened up a swanky new tattoo shop in Austin, Minn. He had plans to open up another. But as Reinartz learned ... More >>

Seized: Inside the brutal world of America's kidnapping capital

Part of the Amongst Us series

Tom Emmer's DWI legislation under the microscope

Is Tom Emmer soft on drunken drivers?​Tom Emmer's 1981 and 1991 arrests for drunk driving have been back in the spotlight this week after a liberal coalition released an ad this week. The Alliance for a Better Minnesota, which made the advertisement, defended the foray into the GOP gubernatori ... More >>

Tom Emmer defends against drunken-driving attack ad [VIDEO]

Tom Emmer battles claims about drunken driving​Quick work on the damage control: The morning after lefty non-profit Alliance for a Better Minnesota unveiled a hit job on Tom Emmer's drunken driving and legislative record, Emmer is firing back with its own ad. It denies Emmer sponsored a bill ... More >>

Tom Petters to bunk at Leavenworth

Photo via WikipediaThe United States Penitentiary, Leavenworth -- The Big House -- is Tom Petters' new address​Ponzi schemer Tom Petters is headed for The Big House: the United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas. And unless his legal team can pull a rabbit out of its hat and win an app ... More >>

Peter Rickmyer, Level 3 sex offender, hollers discrimination

The perpetual Jordan neighborhood gadfly has filed a complaint with the Minneapolis Department of Human Rights claiming he's being discriminated against for his sexual orientation.

David Hoffman denied parole in murder and dismembering of wife

David Hoffman​By the time David Hoffman was done with his late wife, Carol, he'd choked her to death, cut her up, tried to feed the pieces to the garbage disposal, and then dumped them in Weaver Lake. That was in 1980. Yesterday, the 63-year-old Corcoran man was denied parole on his 1981 co ... More >>

Letters to the Editor: MADD about you

Do DWI laws work?

One in seven Minnesotans has a drunk driving conviction. Are we any safer?