A federal officer shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis on Wednesday, shortly after the Trump administration deployed thousands of immigration agents to the city. Although the full circumstances of the killing remain unclear, video of the shooting shows an officer opening fire on the woman as she drove away.
Minnesota
OPINION EXCHANGE | Counterpoint: It's not Finland or bust: How Minnesota schools can evolve
Opinion editor’s note: Star Tribune Opinion publishes a mix of national and local commentaries online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.
•••
Minnesota should “adopt the Finnish education model,” Jon Olson wrote in his Feb. 13 commentary “10 bold initiatives for Minnesota.” Ted Kolderie quickly shot down the idea, calling it an “impossibility” (“Delving more deeply into ‘bold initiative’ No. 1,” counterpoint, Feb. 16). I heard an all-or-nothing approach in these two perspectives. However, I see a middle ground as a U.S. teacher and parent living in Finland.
The North Star State should neither import nor brush aside the high-performing Finnish model. Instead, Minnesota schools can draw inspiration from Finland while exercising caution.
In the early 2000s, the Finnish education system gained a reputation for high student achievement on a set of standardized tests called the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). However, Finland’s PISA scores have gradually declined. No one can definitively explain the country’s downward trend, but theories abound. In recent years, Finnish schools have struggled to address the low performance of immigrant students and a wide gender achievement gap.
Despite its blemishes, Finland’s efficient model still produces solid academic results. Finnish schools offer shorter school days, fewer standardized tests and less stress than I have found in U.S. districts. Elementary school students in Finland enjoy multiple recess periods per day, a balanced curriculum and very little homework. Finnish teachers, who typically hold a master’s degree in education, experience significant autonomy within a collaborative teaching environment.
Copper Island Academy, a Michigan charter school I work with, borrows best practices from Finnish education. For example, it implements hands-on programs (including studio and culinary arts), frequent outdoor breaks and teacher-powered leadership. Educators at this K-8 school also minimize homework and standardized test prep.
In 2023, Copper Island emerged as a top performer based on its high Michigan School Index score, placing it among the top 10% of the state’s public schools. Their Finnish-inspired model has quickly gained traction in their local community. The school expects enrollment to rise in the fall — from 340 to more than 400 students in just a year.
Finnish inspiration takes different forms. Sure, it can look like starting a school from scratch, but it can be much less ambitious than that. Since I wrote my book “Teach Like Finland,” U.S. educators have told me about Finnish-inspired changes they have made in their classrooms, such as giving students more responsibilities and incorporating more movement. But if I could implement just one practice in all U.S. schools, I would choose Finland’s approach to recess.
Elementary school children in Finland usually get a 15-minute break built into every hourlong lesson. Several times per day, teachers send their students to the playground for free play after 45 minutes of instruction. (Copper Island Academy sticks to a similar schedule.)
A vast body of research supports Finland’s recess strategy. Researchers, including Anthony Pellegrini, professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota, have shown that regular breaks help children to focus during the school day. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, recess is necessary “for optimizing a child’s social, emotional, physical, and cognitive development.”
A veteran educator in St. Paul told me that elementary school students in Minnesota usually receive about 15 minutes of recess per day. The state Department of Education even calls providing at least 20 minutes of daily recess to all K-5 students a best practice. The Finns I know would be shocked to hear this.
To their credit, Minnesota policymakers recently improved recess practices across the state. The “Recess for All” law went into effect this school year, prohibiting recess detention (i.e., removing or excessively delaying a child from a scheduled break for disciplinary reasons). However, the law’s title is misleading.
Like most U.S. states, Minnesota does not guarantee daily recess for elementary school children. State law only recommends it. But many states — including Rhode Island, New Jersey and Florida — have mandated daily recess over the last decade. Rather than adopting the entire Finnish model, what if the Minnesota Legislature drew inspiration from Finland and simply guaranteed daily recess to K-5 students?
Even better, Minnesota could require its elementary schools to offer multiple recess periods per school day, Finnish style. This reform is doable. Arizona already requires its public schools to provide K-5 students with two daily recess blocks. Minnesota could be next.
Timothy Walker is a U.S. educator and author living in Espoo, Finland. He began a paid partnership with Copper Island Academy in 2023.
Realistically, there’s virtually no chance that President Donald Trump’s Justice Department will bring federal charges against the officer who killed this woman. Trump already claimed on TruthSocial, his personal social media site, that the officer shot the woman in “self defense.” (The officer could potentially be prosecuted after Trump leaves office.)
But many local officials are quite upset about this incident. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey gave a press conference Wednesday afternoon where he told US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to “get the fuck out of Minneapolis.” If further investigations reveal that the shooting was not legally justified, state prosecutors could potentially charge the officer responsible with a homicide crime.
The Supreme Court’s Republican majority has made it very difficult for private citizens to sue federal law enforcement officers who break the law. But can a federal officer actually be charged with, and convicted of, violating a state criminal law?
Until fairly recently, the law was favorable to federal officials who allegedly violate state criminal laws while they carry out their official duties. The seminal case, known as In re Neagle (1890), held that a deputy US marshall who shot and killed a man could not be charged with murder in state court, because this federal officer did so while acting as a bodyguard for a US Supreme Court justice.
Last June, however, the Supreme Court handed down Martin v. United States (2025), which held that Neagle does not always protect federal officials who violate state law. The rule announced in Martin is vague, so it is unclear how it would apply to the shooting in Minneapolis. But the gist of the ruling is that a federal officer is only protected if they can demonstrate that “their actions, though criminal under state law, were ‘necessary and proper’ in the discharge of their federal responsibilities.”
If the officer responsible for the Minneapolis killing broke Minnesota law, in other words, any prosecution against them would turn on whether the courts decide shooting this woman was a “necessary and proper” exercise of the officer’s official duties.
There is one other potential complication. A federal law provides that state criminal charges against “any officer (or any person acting under that officer) of the United States or any agency thereof” may be removed from state court and heard by a federal judge. This statute does not prevent state prosecutors from bringing charges or from prosecuting a case. But it does ensure that the question of whether Neagle applies to this case would be decided by federal courts that are increasingly dominated by conservative Republicans.
Federal cases out of Minnesota appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, a very conservative court where 10 of the 11 active judges were appointed by Republicans. And, of course, any decision by the Eighth Circuit might be appealed to the Supreme Court, where Republicans control six of the nine seats.
All of which is a long way of saying that, while the law does not absolutely preclude Minnesota prosecutors from filing charges against this officer, it is far from clear that those charges will stick.
When are federal officers immune from prosecution in state court?
The facts underlying the Neagle case are simply wild. David Terry was a lawyer and former chief justice of the state of California, who had served with US Supreme Court Justice Stephen Field while the two were both state supreme court justices. At the time, federal justices were required to “ride circuit” and hear cases outside of Washington, DC. And so, Field wound up hearing a dispute about whether Terry’s wife was entitled to a share of a US senator’s fortune.
At the court proceeding, where Field ruled against Terry’s wife, Terry punched a US marshal, brandished a bowie knife, and was jailed for contempt of court. After his release, he and his wife continued to threaten Field’s life, and so, the attorney general ordered Deputy Marshal David Neagle to act as Field’s bodyguard.
Then, Terry attacked Field while Field was traveling through California by train, and Neagle shot and killed Terry.
Given these facts, it’s unsurprising that the Supreme Court ruled that California could not bring charges against Neagle for this killing. The case involved a physical attack on a sitting justice! And, besides, Neagle acted within the scope of his responsibilities as Field’s federally appointed bodyguard.
135 years later, however, the Court decided Martin. That more recent decision focused on language in the Neagle opinion that suggested that its scope may be limited. Neagle, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in Martin, arose from concerns that “California could frustrate federal law by prosecuting a federal marshal “for an act which he was authorized to do by the law of the United States.” Protecting Field was something that “it was [Neagle’s] duty to do.” And, in shooting Terry, Neagle “did no more than what was necessary and proper.”
Thus, Gorsuch extracted a rule from Neagle that federal officials are only protected from state law when their actions “were ‘necessary and proper’ in the discharge of their federal responsibilities.”
In the wake of Martin, Minnesota may very well be able to prosecute the officer responsible for the Minnesota killing. As a general rule, federal law enforcement officers are not authorized by the law of the United States to shoot people without justification. So, if it turns out that this killing was legally unjustified, federal courts may conclude that the officer’s actions were not necessary and proper in the discharge of his official duties.
That said, Martin is a fairly new opinion, and the rule it announced is vague. And any prosecution against a federal immigration officer would be unavoidably political. So, it is unclear whether the judges who hear this case would approach it as fair and impartial jurists or as partisans.
The bottom line, in other words, is that the law governing when federal officers may be charged with state crimes is quite unclear. So, it is uncertain whether a prosecution against this particular officer would succeed — even assuming that a state prosecutor could convince a jury to convict.
Minnesota
‘You’ll never eliminate fraud totally’: Expert says Minnesota isn’t an outlier in pandemic fraud
Despite fresh — and so far unfounded — allegations of fraud in Minnesota, the scandal that has dogged Gov. Tim Walz for years and ultimately led him to end his bid for reelection this week got its start during the pandemic. A fraud researcher says fraud and pandemics go hand in hand, and that very few if any governments got out of the COVID-19 crisis unscathed.
Minnesota
Minnesota colleges expand cannabis studies programs to build labor force in budding industry
NINA MOINI: As the cannabis industry grows in Minnesota, there is a need for more skilled workers. Two Minnesota colleges are expanding their programs to help teach people the ropes of the cannabis industry. Starting next week, St. Cloud State University will have their first cohort of students enrolled in a new cannabis certificate program.
Minnesota State Community and Technical College, or M State, which has schools across Northwest Minnesota, will also be expanding their offerings. M State was the first two-year college in greater Minnesota to offer cannabis education. So both schools are partnering with the company Green Flower to offer the courses. So joining me now to learn more about this is the CEO of Green Flower, Max Simon. Hi, Max.
MAX SIMON: Hi there.
NINA MOINI: Thank you for being here. Also very happy to have Sean Collins, who’s the director of Workforce Development Solutions at M State. Thanks so much for your time this afternoon, Sean.
SEAN COLLINS: Yeah, great to be here.
NINA MOINI: Max, I wanted to start with you, if I could. Would you tell us a little bit about Green Flower and the types of courses you offer?
MAX SIMON: Yeah, Green Flower is a decade old cannabis education leader. And we develop programs that help people enter the different sectors of the cannabis industry, because there’s all these different places where people can play a role and need dedicated training to be able to enter the industry.
NINA MOINI: Yeah, tell me a little bit about– I see there are five pathways here, because people are probably like, what am I exactly studying? Tell me what those are.
MAX SIMON: Yeah, the cannabis industry is a lot more complex and interesting than most people realize. Yeah, these five sectors. There’s cultivation, which is growing plants in the ground. There’s a product development sector, where you’re actually taking products from the plant material and making them into edibles, and topicals, and medical products.
There’s a retail and sales program, which is all about the customer-facing and sales-facing side of the industry. There’s a medical cannabis program because at least 50% of the people that are coming to cannabis today are coming from medical and health and wellness reasons. And then there’s a compliance program, because it’s a very heavily regulated industry. And every cannabis company on Earth requires a compliance expert to navigate the challenges of running a legal industry.
NINA MOINI: Wow, that’s fascinating. Sean, why was this something that you wanted to offer at M State. Is there a lot of interest?
SEAN COLLINS: Yes, there has been a lot of interest. And M State really wanted to offer this program because it is an emerging industry. But similar to industries like the alcohol industry, there’s a lot of compliance that needs to happen, a lot of legal things that need to be followed.
And so since cannabis is legalized and here to stay, we wanted to be the organization that can actually provide that solid training for the workforce. So that they can go in and be confident in their jobs, and also do this legally and follow all the regulations that are needed.
NINA MOINI: Yeah, I’m hearing so much about regulations from both of you guys and all the nuances of the industry. And I wonder, Max, if that’s why people can’t just take, I guess, regular business classes? Or do you think that’s part of it?
MAX SIMON: Definitely a part of it. There’s a lot of stigma related to cannabis and a lot of misinformation. But when you get down to the science, the business, the compliance, the operations, it’s a very complex industry.
It really is heavily regulated. It’s a difficult plant to grow. It’s a difficult substance to work with in product development. And such a huge variety of different people come to cannabis for so many different reasons. And so this is why this specialized training is so important, because to work in this industry, you really need to understand the industry.
NINA MOINI: And to your point there, does that impact who is teaching the courses?
MAX SIMON: Absolutely. So all of these programs are literally taught by people that are operating businesses and working inside of the industry. We realized that we couldn’t have theoretical teachers or people that were just looking at it from the outside. You needed people that were there doing this work on the inside. So every program is actually facilitated by these instructors who come from the cannabis industry and are operating in it in a daily basis.
NINA MOINI: And I wonder, Max, if from when you said you started 10 years ago with these efforts, what has that evolution been like? What a 10 years.
MAX SIMON: I mean, the amount of acceptance, adoption, legalization, and progress that cannabis has had over the last decade is literally staggering. And to see now that this is something that’s so commonly accepted, that’s so widely used, and that is growing so quickly, it’s a fun thing to be a part of today.
NINA MOINI: Sean, why do you think this appeals to students there in greater Minnesota, too?
SEAN COLLINS: I think a lot of it has to do with the younger generation that has grown up with cannabis being more in the public eye. So the subject has been a lot more open to the public eye. As he mentioned, there is a bit of a stigma with cannabis. But we do think the younger generations don’t have that same stigma.
And so being able to provide this training to these younger generations to get into the field, and especially into a field that is growing and is actually paying good wages, that’s really important to us. And so, yeah, it’s been a great partnership with Green Flower. They provide fantastic training. And we love working with them and providing actual good, solid training that is getting people jobs as soon as they complete these courses.
NINA MOINI: Yeah, and Sean, tell me a little bit, if you would, about this idea of the certification. Because we know that some trends show in higher education enrollment struggles in different areas. But this isn’t as huge of a commitment in time. Tell me about this idea of the industry certification.
SEAN COLLINS: Yeah, so we are seeing a bit of a trend away from four year degrees. That’s why community and technical colleges like M State are actually seeing an uptick in enrollment for some of these more hands-on things, two-year programs.
But then on the other side, outside of the credit side of the school, on the non-credit side, which is my side of the house, we’re seeing a lot of people that are just trying to get into valuable industries quickly. And so industry recognized certifications are very, very important in that.
And so by a student attending these courses and having the certification, they can go to an employer and say, hey, I am already trained and come off– come out of there with a good job offer and the requisite skills needed to do that job. The fact that it’s an accelerated course really, really helps out also with the growth of the industry, because the industry is not waiting for someone to get a two-year degree just to enter the industry.
NINA MOINI: Fascinating. Just before we have to go, I did want to ask you about this, Max. Last month, the President Donald Trump, set in a motion and a process to move marijuana from a Schedule I drug, which includes, like heroin, LSD to Schedule III drug, which, again, puts it in a lower risk category for folks who don’t know. What impact do you think this will have on your company and schools that want to offer this type of education program?
MAX SIMON: Yeah, it has a huge impact because it really signals that this is an industry and a substance that isn’t as scary as we once thought it was. But it also creates a much more friendly regulatory environment for companies to be able to grow.
It creates a lot more access for research. And it really sends a loud signal that this is something that we should look at as a more favorable, and positive, and beneficial substance to society, whereas historically, it’s only been looked at and treated as something that’s bad for you.
NINA MOINI: And Max, do you think there ever would be like a two-year or a four-year degree type of program for people who are interested in that?
MAX SIMON: I do. But I also– these programs are only 16 weeks long. And we find that people that are looking to just get into the industry, and get jobs, and switch their careers, really love this short form credential. And so I think that these shorter certificate programs really work well to serve the industry as it is today.
NINA MOINI: One more question for you, Sean. Do you feel like there are jobs out there for people who go through this 16 weeks? Is it like, oh, boom, I’m going to get a job right away?
SEAN COLLINS: In fact, I actually had a former employee at my previous employer who left our employer to go take one of these courses. And he was hired pretty much immediately after completing the course. He did the retail specialist side. And he was hired by a dispensary here in town pretty much immediately. And he was actually making– he came from an IT position. And he was actually making a wage that was equivalent to that position he left.
NINA MOINI: Wow lots developing, lots growing there. [LAUGHS] Thank you both so much for your time and for coming by Minnesota Now. We hope you’ll come back sometime.
[PHONE RINGS]
Oh, looks like you got to take a call. All right, thanks to both of our guests, Sean Collins, the director of Workforce Development Solutions at M State, and Max Simon, the CEO of the cannabis education program Green Flower.
Kentucky4 minutes ago
Kentucky vs Missouri score today, UK basketball game updates
Louisiana10 minutes ago
USDA picks Louisiana lawmaker to lead state’s rural development efforts. See who it is.
Maine16 minutes ago
Maine mill accepts N.B. wood again, but producers still struggle to stay afloat | CBC News
Maryland22 minutes ago
Open Thread: IU basketball travels to Maryland seeking first road win
Michigan28 minutes ago
Michigan Lottery contributions over $1B to K-12 schools for 7th year in a row, state says
Florida1 year ago
Florida High School Football Rankings: Top 25 teams – Oct. 21
Connecticut2 years ago
Cleary's 21 help Le Moyne down Central Connecticut State 69-64 in OT
Oregon2 years ago
How old is Bo Nix? What to know about Oregon quarterback ahead of 2024 NFL Draft
Virginia1 year ago
99th annual Pony Swim held in Virginia
Education2 years ago
Video: ‘It Didn’t Have to Happen This Way:’ U.Va. Faculty Call for Review of Police Response to Protests
Politics5 hours ago
San Diego sues to stop border barrier construction
World6 hours ago
How Ukraine is shaping Europe’s response to Trump’s Greenland threats
News7 hours ago
GOP gearing up to face tough midterms. And, Pentagon reviews women in ground combat
Politics17 hours ago
Wyoming Supreme Court rules laws restricting abortion violate state constitution
World18 hours ago
How strong are Latin America’s military forces, as they face US threats?
-
World1 week agoHamas builds new terror regime in Gaza, recruiting teens amid problematic election
-
News1 week agoFor those who help the poor, 2025 goes down as a year of chaos
-
Science1 week agoWe Asked for Environmental Fixes in Your State. You Sent In Thousands.
-
Business1 week agoA tale of two Ralphs — Lauren and the supermarket — shows the reality of a K-shaped economy
-
Detroit, MI4 days ago2 hospitalized after shooting on Lodge Freeway in Detroit
-
Politics1 week agoCommentary: America tried something new in 2025. It’s not going well
-
Politics1 week agoMarjorie Taylor Greene criticizes Trump’s meetings with Zelenskyy, Netanyahu: ‘Can we just do America?’
-
Health1 week agoRecord-breaking flu numbers reported in New York state, sparking warnings from officials