Connect with us

Minneapolis, MN

Minneapolis City Council considers another $1.4 million in workers’ comp settlements with cops • Minnesota Reformer

Published

on

Minneapolis City Council considers another .4 million in workers’ comp settlements with cops • Minnesota Reformer


The Minneapolis City Council is poised to approve another $1.4 million in workers’ compensation settlements with 10 former police officers.

A council committee voted 5-1 Monday to approve the settlements, with only Chair Robin Wonsley voting “no.” The settlements await an Aug. 1 vote by the full council. 

Since the murder of George Floyd, hundreds of Minneapolis police officers have left their jobs, with most retiring early, claiming post-traumatic stress disorder and getting disability pensions and workers’ compensation benefits.

In the first two years after Floyd’s murder, the Minneapolis City Council approved over $22 million in workers’ compensation settlements for 144 Minneapolis police officers, rejecting a settlement with an officer just once; he had been involved in an excessive force case. 

Advertisement

The council has since approved millions more in settlements.

A $125,000 settlement with former MPD officer Christopher Cushenbery was sent back to city staff Monday because “there may have been an error,” Wonsley said.

Cushenbery was part of a SWAT team that drove around in an unmarked van firing 40-mm “less lethal” plastic projectiles at curfew-violators without warning five days after George Floyd’s killing. On the night of May 30, 2020, the SWAT team’s unmarked, white cargo van crept down Lake Street. Protests had ebbed but a curfew was in effect.

Cushenbery was the first officer to fire marking rounds at a small group of people standing in a Lake Street parking lot, hitting St. Paul truck driver Jaleel Stallings in the chest. Stallings fired back with his pistol, for which he had a permit. He testified later that he didn’t know the shots came from a van full of police officers or that they were 40-mm rounds as opposed to real bullets.

Under MPD policy, officers weren’t supposed to use 40-mm rounds to target a person’s head, neck, throat or chest “unless deadly force is justified,” because they could cause “permanent physical or mental incapacity or possible death.”

Advertisement

After Stallings fired back, the SWAT team piled out of the van and two officers beat him bloody. Stallings was hospitalized with a fractured eye socket, even as police and prosecutors painted him as a would-be cop killer. Stallings claimed self-defense, and was acquitted by a jury of eight charges, including two counts of attempted murder.

Cushenbery didn’t mention to investigators that the officers fired first, according to court documents.

Cushenbery left city employment in April 2021, and receives a state disability pension payment of over $5,100 per month.

Some council members have voted against past police workers’ comp settlements. Wonsley has said that many departing officers “engaged in gross misconduct that have produced many victims and have cost taxpayers over $77 million in liability settlements” since 2012.

Workers’ comp is insurance that helps workers who are hurt on the job. The City Council has been advised by its legal counsel that settling the workers’ comp cases with lump sum payouts is cheaper than going to trial. There’s no guarantee the city would win, and it could end up paying more.

Advertisement

City officials have said past misconduct is not legally relevant to whether the city has to pay workers’ comp benefits, and often lump sums are paid out for a fraction of the expected total liability. The money is paid out of the city’s self-insurance fund, which means city taxpayers — rather than an insurance company — would pay for the settlements if the council approves them.



Source link

Minneapolis, MN

Minnesota weather: Gorgeous Sunday with a warmer Monday ahead

Published

on

Minnesota weather: Gorgeous Sunday with a warmer Monday ahead


A sunny and warm Sunday is in store for the Twin Cities, with even higher temperatures expected on Monday before a chance of rain and cooler air returns later in the week.

Sunday forecast

Local perspective:

Advertisement

Sunday is starting with some cloud cover before sunshine moves in with highs near 70 degrees around the metro and southern parts of the state. 

Winds will be much lighter than Saturday, coming from the south at 5 to 10 mph with only occasional gusts up to 15 mph. 

Advertisement

The Brainerd Lakes area will see temperatures in the 60s, while the North Shore will be cooler, which is typical for this time of year. 

Sunday’s weather is expected to be dry and pleasant.

Overnight, temperatures will drop to the upper 30s and lower 40s, with some clouds moving in ahead of Monday. 

Advertisement

Extended forecast 

What’s next:

Monday could be the warmest day of the week, with highs in the lower 70s for the Twin Cities and some spots in southern Minnesota possibly reaching close to 80 degrees.

Advertisement

Winds will shift from southerly to southeasterly and then easterly as the day goes on, but should remain light. 

After the warm start to the week, a cold front will move through on Tuesday, bringing a chance for a few rain showers in the early morning. 

Advertisement

Temperatures will likely drop to the upper 40s by Wednesday and Thursday, with another front possibly bringing showers late Friday into early Saturday.

The rest of the extended forecast calls for temperatures close to or just below average, with highs in the upper 40s to lower 50s.

The Source: This story uses information from the FOX 9 weather forecast.

Advertisement

WeatherWeather Forecast



Source link

Continue Reading

Minneapolis, MN

Man found dead in south Minneapolis house fire

Published

on

Man found dead in south Minneapolis house fire


Firefighters are investigating the Minneapolis’s second fire fatality of the year after a man died in a house fire Saturday afternoon. 

Fatal fire on 28th Avenue South

What we know:

Advertisement

According to the Minneapolis Fire Department (MFD), fire crews arrived shortly after 1:00 p.m. and found smoke coming from the second floor of a single-family home on 28th Avenue South. Bystanders alerted firefighters that someone might be trapped inside.

Crews had to work through heavy debris to reach the upstairs area. It took about 40 minutes to fully put out the fire.

Advertisement

During the primary search, firefighters found a man in his 60s dead on the second floor. No one else was found after searching all the floors.

Minneapolis Animal Care and Control took in a dog found outside the home.

Assistant Chief Wes Van Vickle said, “The department is grateful to the neighbors who alerted fire crews that someone may still have been inside, allowing them to act quickly.”

Advertisement

Fire safety reminders and community response

What they’re saying:

“This afternoon’s tragic loss of life weighs heavily on all of us, and we extend our deepest condolences to the family and friends of the deceased,” said Van Vickle.

Advertisement

He also encourages the public to regularly check and maintain smoke detectors and fire extinguishers at home.

There were no other injuries reported. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner is working to confirm the man’s identity.

Advertisement

What we don’t know:

The cause of the fire has not yet been determined, and the man’s name has not been released.

FireMinneapolis
Advertisement



Source link

Continue Reading

Minneapolis, MN

Minnesota serves as the flagship for nationwide ‘No Kings’ protests against Trump

Published

on

Minnesota serves as the flagship for nationwide ‘No Kings’ protests against Trump


ST. PAUL, Minn. — Organizers of Saturday’s “No Kings” rallies across the country are predicting that the protests against the actions of President Donald Trump and his administration could add up to one of the largest demonstrations in U.S. history, with Minnesota taking center stage.

Organizers say more than 3,100 events have been registered in all 50 states, with more than 9 million people expected to participate.

And they’ve designated the rally at the Minnesota Capitol in St. Paul as the national flagship event, in recognition of how the state where federal agents fatally shot two people who were monitoring Trump’s immigration crackdown became an epicenter of resistance.

Headlining that observance will be Bruce Springsteen, performing “Streets of Minneapolis,” which he wrote in response to the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and in tribute to the thousands of Minnesotans who took to the streets over the winter. Springsteen’s Land of Hope & Dreams American Tour, which has a “No Kings” theme, kicks off Tuesday in Minneapolis.

Advertisement

Minnesota organizers have told state officials they expect 100,000 people could converge on the Capitol grounds, where last June’s event drew an estimated 80,000 people.

The St. Paul rally will also feature singer Joan Baez, actor Jane Fonda,Sen. Bernie Sanders and a long list of other activists, labor leaders and elected officials.

The White House dismissed the nationwide protests as the product of “leftist funding networks” with little real public support.

“The only people who care about these Trump Derangement Therapy Sessions are the reporters who are paid to cover them,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement.

Rallies are also planned in more than a dozen other countries, from Europe to Latin America to Australia, Ezra Levin, a co-executive director of Indivisible, a group spearheading the events, said in an interview. Countries with constitutional monarchies call the protests “No Tyrants,” he said.

Advertisement

For those unable to attend in person, another activist group, Stand Up For Science, is hosting a “virtual and accessible” event online.

National organizers told reporters in an online news conference Thursday that they expect Saturday’s protests to be larger than the first two rounds of No Kings rallies, which they estimate drew more than 5 million people in June and more than 7 million in October.

“This administration’s actions are angering not just Democratic voters or folks in big blue city centers – they are crossing a line for people in red and rural areas, in the suburbs, all over the country,” said Leah Greenberg, the other co-executive director of Indivisible. “The defining story of this Saturday’s mobilization is not just how many people are protesting, but where they are protesting,”

Two-thirds of the RSVPs have come from outside of major urban centers, Greenberg said, listing registration surges in conservative-leaning states like Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, South Dakota and Louisiana, as well in competitive suburban areas of Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona.

“Millions of us are rising up from all walks of life, from rural communities to big cities at No Kings,” said Katie Bethell, executive director of MoveOn, another major organizer. “And as we do so, we will send the loudest, clearest message yet that this country does not belong to kings, dictators, tyrants. It belongs to us.”

Advertisement

Copyright © 2026 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.



Source link

Continue Reading

Trending