The AP and the Forum News Service report: “A 29-year-old man killed his aunt and uncle, two young cousins and their dog while they slept, then later killed himself at their Duluth home after posting on Facebook that he had made ‘the absolutely horrid choice’ to do so, police said Thursday. Duluth Police Chief Mike Tusken said at a news conference that Brandon Taylor Cole-Skogstad killed his relatives in their beds sometime Tuesday night, then shot himself as police knocked on the door around 12:30 p.m. Wednesday. Cole-Skogstad made his Facebook post about an hour earlier, saying he had ‘suffered many years of mental illness’ but that he ‘almost never sought out help because I felt I never deserved it.’”
A Star Tribune story by Jeff Meitrodt says, “FBI agents arrested a man connected to the sprawling federal investigation of the child nutrition program Wednesday, taking him into custody as he attempted to board a flight to Amsterdam at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Federal prosecutors charged Isanti resident Mohamed Jama Ismail, 49, with knowingly making a false statement when he applied for a new passport in March after authorities seized his passport during a January raid of his house. …Ismail used the new passport when he checked in for his flight, the complaint said.”
In the Minneapolis/St.Paul Business Journal Ethan Nelson says, “Advocacy groups spent more than $72 million lobbying Minnesota’s government last year, a jump of around $5 million from 2020 and a figure that signals a return to normal for groups looking to influence elected officials. The $68 million that organizations spent on lobbying in 2020 was the lowest the state had seen since 2012. Jeff Sigurdson, executive director of the Minnesota Campaign Finance Board, said that’s a result of the pandemic relegating formerly in-person, often ad-hoc meetings to more formal Zoom calls.”
Says the Star Tribune’s Jeremy Olson, “Coronavirus infections have risen back above Minnesota’s high-risk threshold, but health officials hope immunity levels will limit the number of cases that result in hospitalization or death. Minnesota for the first time in two months has identified more than 1,000 infections in a day, despite the rising popularity of at-home rapid antigen COVID-19 tests that aren’t included in state tallies. … Even with the increase, Minnesota’s case rate remains far below the peak of 246 per 100,000 residents in the week ending Jan. 11.”
Mara H. Gottfried reports in the Pioneer Press: “The St. Paul city council named an additional 35 people Thursday to an examining committee to help select the next police chief. They will join the previously-appointed co-chairs, Sasha Cotton and Kathy Lantry. …The committee will review applications, conduct interviews, lead community engagement and recommend five candidates to Mayor Melvin Carter. Carter will appoint a police chief for a six-year term. The committee is expected to meet once a week beginning in late May or early June.”
This from John Myers and the Forum News Service, “It’s long been assumed that wolves will prey upon the easiest meals out there, including the sick, the very young and the old among the deer or moose they live with. Now, a new study by Isle Royale researchers from Michigan Technological University has documented that assumption as fact, and found that wolves play a key role in keeping moose populations healthy on the big Lake Superior island. Wolves on the island showed a strong preference for elderly moose over prime-age moose, with wolves selecting their targets based on the age of the moose and whether it suffered from osteoarthritis, a chronic disease that can be influenced by genetics and injuries.”
FOX 9’s Leah Beno reports: “As a fourth-year physics major with a math minor, 13-year-old Elliott Tanner is on the verge of graduating yet remains one of the youngest students at the University of Minnesota. … Elliott says he wants to be a high-energy theoretical physicist and ultimately a professor of physics at the University of Minnesota. His mom, Michelle Tanner, says he started reading and doing math by age 3. A few years of homeschooling, and he tore through the high school curriculum when he was ages 7 and 8, and started college at 9-years-old.”
ESPN’s Kevin Arnowitz reports: “In one of the most dramatic comebacks in NBA playoffs history, the Memphis Grizzlies clawed their way out of a 26-point hole on Thursday night to defeat the Minnesota Timberwolves 104-95. Improbably, the Grizzlies now lead the best-of-seven first-round series 2-1.”
Does St Paul think they are going to get any quality candidates for the police chief job? Who would want the job. This is was done on purpose?
It sure would be nice if MinnPost had someone doing some hard investigative journalism into the Feeding Our Future scandal.
“Even with the increase, Minnesota’s case rate remains far below the peak of 246 per 100,000 residents in the week ending Jan. 11.”
Yeah, but we never made it down as low as we were last summer before cases started climbing again. Hey – but what a great time to end all the public safety measures!
Another mentally ill person grabs a gun and kills several innocent people. Another day in the USA, or maybe another hour in the USA? I learned a fun fact yesterday, there are 120 guns for every 100 people in this country. Of course that has nothing to do with the carnage that we see everyday, its just one of the “fun” little quirks we Americans are famous for.
Sounds like society not dealing with mental illness. Someone afraid to get help.
He had no prior 911 calls to that home. Not enough details if he had a past history with law enforcement or the medical community.
From what this article provides, there is no reason why this person doesn’t have the right to legally own a firearm.
This is a massive tragedy all around. This man felt a stigma about his mental illness, or at the very least he felt shame about himself. He considered himself unworthy. Why is there stigma about mental illness that is not there, say, when you need a root canal? I want a sociologist to weigh in here.
In his mentally-I’ll state, he could both know the terrible thing he was going to do but could not prevent himself from doing it. Why? How was his family not aware of the depth of his problem? I want a psychologist to weigh in here.
And then there is the easy access to guns. We are awash in guns. We are fascinated with their power. They reign very large in our nation’s collective unconscious. They immediately confer an imagined power to the buyer, regardless of the fact that their overt use rarely brings the peaceful state one imagines they will. Are we more secure and more content with their proliferation? I want a historian to weigh in here.
Finally, I ask any and every politician to speak about this. But don’t go back to your right/left talking points. Take a deep breath and speak as a leader who was elected for the benefit of the whole society, a servant of the people. Don’t just blabber things that do not speak to half the population. Speak to the communities which are living in greater and greater fear. This is not the world most of us thought we were building. Where do we go from here? I want politicians to weigh in here.
Some context on mental illness and violence: despite a widespread fear and stigma of the mentally ill, only three percent of violent acts in America are committed by a mentally ill person (source: The MacArthur Risk Assessment Study, which can be read at the National Library of Medicine). Furthermore, a person with mental illness in America is significantly more likely to be the VICTIM of violence, rather than the perpetrator. Another point of information: per the New England Journal of Medicine, gun violence is now the single leading cause of pediatric death in America, surpassing auto accidents for the first time. I read that statistic and cried – what a senseless, useless and unforgivable loss of life, happiness and potential. And for what? Our cultures fetishization and groveling worship of guns. It’s sickening.
Do we need to do a better job de-stigmatizing mental illness and mental health care in this country and make it affordable, or free, and available to all? Yes. Obviously. Do we need to take a hard look at ourselves and and maybe can it with our obsession with murder sticks and our relentless kowtowing to an industry whose only function is to create mayhem and death? Yes. Obviously.
I’d like to know how lobbying money is spent. I find it disturbing that the amount of money spent lobbying Minnesota legislators exceeds the total salaries of Minnesota legislators by more than 7x.
Here’s some data: (Chamber of Commerce is BIG.)
https://www.startribune.com/how-65m-was-spent-to-influence-state-government-last-year/568996552/
…and here’s last year: (Enbridge and pressure on the Public Utilities Commission.
https://www.startribune.com/spending-on-minnesota-lobbying-fell-to-67-5-million-in-2020/600036648/
OpenSecrets covers federal lobbying, top spenders, top lobbying firms, industries and a searchable database.
https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying
I’m still looking for the crooked money given the GOP by Lazaro that was supposed to be “given to charity”.
Citizen’s United baked in the secrecy. Crowdfunding, PACs and billi0naires pitting states against each other for investment is big.
I truly believe being in the modern GOP is considered a well-paying JOB.
Was it also so? I don’t think so.
Thank you, Richard. Unfortunately, I don’t have access to the Strib, but I did peruse Open Secrets. I’m afraid I still don’t understand how the money is spent (I don’t mean which bills, industries, etc.). I do understand that some portion goes to funding campaigns. I also know that some amount of money is spent by firms paying employee salaries, travel, etc. I also understand that some money is spent on things that really shouldn’t be paid for, like paying for meals, travel, golf games, and stuff like that. I want to know about how money actually *influences* lawmakers. Because we all know that facts are irrelevant to many lawmakers, so that money has to be going to more than just paying people to show up and talk to lawmakers.
Citizens United is one of the reasons that our country will fail, in my mind. It’s not like lawmakers didn’t tiptoe the line of corruption before that. It’s actually less legal in many ways to do what lawmakers did in the past. But “it ain’t illegal if you don’t get caught.” Thanks to CU and SCOTUS for making that possible.
The Strib paywall won’t let me connect to those two annual reports either, today.
Here’s a better source
CAMPAIGN FINANCE and PUBLIC DISCLOSURE BOARD (lobbying and campaign finance)
https://cfb.mn.gov/publications/programs/reports/annual-reports/
PDFs for many years with detailed lobbyist disbursements (page 20 for last year)
Another indisputable example of how the vast ocean of weaponry in America makes us all safer!
I’m sure this mass murderer had kept his (claimed) serious mental illness a secret to all…
Given the anti-wolf lobby, It’s good to know for a fact that “wolves play a key role in keeping moose populations healthy” by preferentially selecting arthritic or elderly moose as moose prey.
At the same time, it’s interesting to contemplate the desirability of that role in the non-human part of the animal kingdom: wolves as enforcers of genetic hygiene. Which illustrates the pretty much unique aspect of the human species: culture and its values.
David, Isle Royale is not an example of a true eco system. It has been modified by man and the modifications void the study by bringing in wolves to replace those who died as a result of their inbreeding. This whole study has been invalidated by mans intervention and should have been allowed to come to a natural conclusion which we already knew what the result would have been. This life cycle had happened previously on Isle Royale and it is said that “insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome”.
Other than your wordsmith Britt, is anyone surprised at our local, allegedly, professional basketball group of individuals?
Walked from car to house and the blew a 20 point lead.
Go Wild