Star Tribune
I ‘could have been clearer’ in comments about officer’s stun-gun incident
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said Monday night that he “could have been clearer,” but he did not intentionally mislead the public in statements regarding the hire of an officer accused of a violent assault that was caught on body-worn camera video in a previous job.
Speaking at a news conference, O’Hara acknowledged that he knew months ago that officer Tyler Timberlake had been involved in a “critical incident” in the past. O’Hara also confirmed that he’d been present during the interview process for Timberlake, whose employment with Minneapolis was terminated last week. When the chief released a statement months after signing off on the hire saying he was “extremely concerned” based on what he’d “just learned” about Timberlake, he meant to convey he’d just seen the body camera footage for the first time, he told reporters Monday.
“I had a very visceral reaction to the behavior that I saw on that video,” O’Hara said. “I was shocked and I gave a statement to the media very quickly, and the statement could have been clearer.”
O’Hara vowed to “fix the hiring process so that we do not simply hire people who meet the minimum qualifications, but that we screen in individuals who reflect the values of this community and of this department.” He said the background check for Timberlake took place before he became chief, and he would not have signed off on Timberlake’s hire if he’d first seen the video.
“I accept responsibility for not being clear enough in my initial comments and for not following up to clarify,” O’Hara said. “But again, I had not seen the video.”
O’Hara’s remarks come in response to sharp critiques over the past five days from the police union and law enforcement watchdogs on his handling of Timberlake. Timberlake was charged and later acquitted of assault and battery for repeatedly shooting a stun-gun at a man who appeared to need medical attention in June 2020, when he worked as an officer in Fairfax, VA. The video appeared in national news coverage.
After the Star Tribune first reported on Timberlake’s termination last week, Minneapolis police union president Sherral Schmidt said that O’Hara was pandering to critics when he told reporters back in April that he’d “just learned” of the incident. Schmidt said O’Hara knew about the officer’s past before a story published by the Minnesota Reformer drew attention to it, and that O’Hara had told Timberlake “he would be OK, if he did good work.”
The Star Tribune obtained internal emails that showed Timberlake had informed the department about the stun-gun incident and criminal charges in September 2022 — seven months before O’Hara said he’d just learned about it. A month after the Reformer story, Timberlake sent an email to Mayor Jacob Frey, City Attorney Kristyn Anderson and Community Safety Commissioner Cedric Alexander accusing the chief of defaming him and asking for city officials to look into the matter.
“Chief O’Hara’s recent statements regarding my employment with MPD are factually false and can be proven as such,” wrote Timberlake in the May 15 email. “These statements have been harmful to my reputation by, among other things, implying that the chief had no knowledge of my prior work history or my hiring at MPD when, in fact, he was involved in my hiring.”
In the news conference Monday, O’Hara said he was limited in what he could address because of data laws pertaining to personnel matters. Anderson was present and stopped O’Hara from answering a question about who else in the city was involved in the hire.
O’Hara said he was only an “observer” — not a participant — in Timberlake’s interview, which took place on a “whirlwind” second day on the job.
When pressed on whether he told Timberlake in the interview that he would “be OK, if he did good work,” O’Hara claimed he didn’t recall the specifics of their conversation.
“I was meeting literally hundreds of people in my initial days here,” he said.
O’Hara said he knew Timberlake “was involved in a critical incident.” But, he said, “quite frankly that is unremarkable. Anyone who has been a police officer in a major city, if they’ve been working on the street, they have been active — it would be unusual if you had not been.”
Asked about the union’s defense of Timberlake, O’Hara said “it is disturbing to me that any member of this department could observe the behavior in that video and think that is what we need in this city at this time.”
O’Hara was sworn in as Minneapolis’ 54th police chief last November on the ambitious promise to reduce the surge in violent crime while also rebuilding community trust in the department. Frey hailed O’Hara, a veteran enforcement officer from New Jersey, as a “change-maker” — someone who could navigate the city and its police into a new era.
In his short time in Minneapolis, O’Hara has won praise from some in the department for changing a policy that stopped officers from pursuing suspects — and by appearing in a body camera video chasing down and helping arrest alleged shooters. He’s also positioned himself as capable of stewarding Minneapolis through a complicated federal consent decree, having recently served as a liaison between the Newark Police Department and Justice Department for a similar agreement there.
“I came here to fix problems,” he said Monday. “I became aware of the problems in this hiring process in April and I have been working ever since to address them.”
Northern State 35, Concordia (St. Paul) 34: Wyatt Block’s 2-yard TD run and the PAT with 10 seconds remaining lifted the Wolves past the host Golden Bears. Block’s touchdown capped an 11-play, 72-yard drive by the Wolves, who trailed 24-7 in the second quarter. Jeff Isotalo-McGuire’s 34-yard field goal with three minutes, 32 seconds remaining gave the Golden Bears a 34-28 lead.
Winona State 31, Bemidji State 28: Cade Stenstrom rushed for two TDs and passed for 150 yards and a TD to help the host Warriors outlast the Beavers. Stenstrom’s 1-yard TD run and the PAT with two minutes, 10 seconds remaining gave the Warriors a 31-21 lead. The Beavers responded with an 11-play, 93-yard drive to pull within 31-28 with 18 seconds remaining but the Warriors recovered the ensuing kickoff.
Div. I-AA
North Dakota State 59, Murray State 6: The top-ranked Bison built a 42-3 lead in the first half and went on to defeat the host Racers in Murray, Ken. CharMar Brown ran for 97 yards and three TDs for the Bison.
South Dakota State 20, South Dakota 17 (OT): Amar Johnson’s 3-yard TD run in overtime lifted the host Jackrabbits to the victory. The Coyotes opened the OT with a 40-yard field goal.
Youngstown State 41, North Dakota 40 (OT): The host Penguins went first in OT and scored and then stopped North Dakota’s two-point conversion to hold on for the victory. The Penguins sent the game into OT on a 35-yard field goal with 12 seconds remaining.
Div. III
Augsburg 35, St. Olaf 34 (OT): The host Auggies stopped a two-point conversion in overtime to outlast the Oles. The Auggies went first in the overtime and scored on a 25-yard pass from Ryan Harvey to Tyrone Wilson. It was Harvey’s fifth TD pass — the fourth to Wilson. After the Auggies’ PAT, the Oles scored on a 25-yard TD pass from Theo Doran to Braden Menz. But the Oles’ pass attempt for the conversion failed.
After splitting their two-game West Coast trip to begin the season, the Wolves improved to 2-1 with a 112-101 win over Toronto in their home opener. It was a wire-to-wire win that featured some strong bursts of play from the Wolves and other times when their decision-making was suspect. But those moments when they were on, specifically the start of the game and most of the third quarter, were enough to carry them against a shorthanded Raptors team that was without RJ Barrett, Bruce Brown and Immanuel Quickley.
Julius Randle had 24 points while Anthony Edwards had 24 on 21 shot attempts. Donte DiVincenzo had 16 off the bench. Nickeil Alexander-Walker left the game in the fourth quarter and did not return, though he was in the bench area for the final minutes after going to the locker room briefly.
The Wolves’ starting lineup had its best stretch of basketball on the season after that unit started off sluggish in the first two games. Mike Conley, who was 3-for-16 to open the year, hit two early threes to set the tone, though Conley would finish 2-for-8.
Donte DiVincenzo replaced him at point guard halfway through the quarter and continued the hot shooting from the point guard slot with three threes of his own. The Wolves forced five Toronto turnovers and had a 32-18 lead after one.
Coach Chris Finch toyed with some different lineup combinations in the first half as he had Conley and DiVincenzo begin the quarter together while having Joe Ingles run the point later in the quarter. It led to an uneven second, and the Wolves led 56-44 at halftime.
But the Wolves played inspired coming out of the break. Jaden McDaniels, who didn’t take a shot in the first half, had nine points in the opening minutes of the third. Edwards hit a pair of threes as they pushed their lead to 22. The Wolves weren’t sharp closing the night, and the Raptors had the game within right inside of two minutes, but the Wolves had built enough of a cushion.
Rudy Gobert. Gobert had 15 points and 13 rebounds and was the beneficiary of some lobs from his teammates like Edwards, Conley, Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Joe Ingles. Gobert also finished with four blocks.
Gobert had two blocks on one possession in the fourth quarter that got the crowd off its feet and Gobert pounding his chest. Gobert blocked D.J. Carton and Jamison Battle.
Star Tribune
Trump denigrates Detroit while appealing for votes in a suburb of Michigan’s largest city
NOVI, Mich. — Donald Trump further denigrated Detroit while appealing for votes Saturday in a suburb of the largest city in swing state Michigan.
”I think Detroit and some of our areas makes us a developing nation,” the former president told supporters in Novi. He said people want him to say Detroit is ”great,” but he thinks it ”needs help.”
The Republican nominee for the White House had told an economic group in Detroit earlier this month that the ”whole country will end up being like Detroit” if Democrat Kamala Harris wins the presidency. That comment drew harsh criticism from Democrats who praised the city for its recent drop in crime and growing population.
Trump’s stop in Novi, after an event Friday night in Traverse City, is a sign of Michigan’s importance in the tight race. Harris is scheduled for a rally in Kalamazoo later Saturday with former first lady Michelle Obama on the first day that early in-person voting becomes available across Michigan. More than 1.4 million ballots have already been submitted, representing 20% of registered voters. Trump won the state in 2016, but Democrat Joe Biden carried it four years later.
Michigan is home to major car companies and the nation’s largest concentration of members of the United Auto Workers. It also has a significant Arab American population, and many have been frustrated by the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s offensive in Gaza after the attack by Hamas against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
During his rally, Trump spotlighted local Muslim and Arab American leaders who joined him on stage. These voters ”could turn the election one way or the other,” Trump said, adding that he was banking on ”overwhelming support” from those voters in Michigan.
“When President Trump was president, it was peace,” said one of those leaders, Mayor Bill Bazzi of Dearborn Heights. ”We didn’t have any issues. There was no wars.”
While Trump is trying to capitalize on the community’s frustration with the Democratic administration, he has a history of policies hostile to this group, including a travel ban targeting Muslim countries while in office and a pledge to expand it to include refugees from Gaza if he wins on Nov. 5.
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