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Minneapolis encampment leaders not ready to yield
City of Minneapolis extended eviction deadline until December 19, but Nenookaasi organizers seek more time.
MINNEAPOLIS — Five days away from eviction date, the people who run a huge homeless encampment in south Minneapolis say they won’t budge until the people at City Hall come up with more options for them.
Thursday was originally the deadline for people to leave what’s known as Camp Nenookaasi, which has been on a piece of city-owed land for four months. The city extended that deadline until the Dec. 19, but organizers say they need more time than that.
“We need our people to recover. And we need no eviction. And we need to keep Camp Nenookaasi,” Nicole Mason, the camp’s lead organizer told reporters at a Thursday morning press conference.
Mason’s a member of the Red Lake Nation and an addict in recovery. She said she created Camp Nenookaasi as a refuge for homeless, especially those trying to recover from addictions who need a place to settle before transitioning to treatment.
The camp stretches for a city block along 13th Avenue South in Minneapolis and is enclosed in fencing with one entrance.
“If we have to leave this land, then we demand that the city gives us a piece of land that we can take our people to be safe.”
Allies of the encampment have helped build it up, including large yurts with wood burning stoves inside.
But the city has grown increasingly worried about health conditions and crime. Tuesday night a 45-year-old man was shot to death in one of the tents. The campers say they feel safer there among friends than they do on the streets.
“I’ve been here since this camp started in the first day, and I’ve been more taken care of out here than I have been in a long time,” a camper named Alana, who has been living on the streets for two years, told reporters.
The City of Minneapolis, Hennepin County and various nonprofits have been working for months to find more permanent housing for those in the camp. The city, working through Helix Health and Housing, had placed 40 of the campers in housing as of last week and expected another 60 by the end of this week.
The camp is located next door to the Indigenous People’s Task Force, which provides a variety of health and educational services to Native American families, including one of the longest running Indigenous youth theaters.
The nonprofit plans to build an art and wellness center on the very land currently occupied by the camp. The sale is scheduled to be finalized in February.
“It will be called Mikwanedun Audisookon which means to remember our teachings in Ojibwe. The thread that runs through everything we do is culture,” Indigenous Task Force executive director Sharon Day told KARE.
Her organization has already raised nearly $12 million to pay for the new center, which was a condition the city set before they would sell the land to the group for $1.
“We’ve been here 30 years, and that’s how long that land has been vacant. We’ve been negotiating with the city over this property for a decade. This will allow us to have space for all of our youth programs to operate adequately. It will give us six new clinical spaces.”
Day agrees homeless addicts need help, and doesn’t blame Mason for wanting to raise the issue. But she doesn’t see the encampment as the solution.
“They know this will soon be Indigenous land. They continue to build up the encampment knowing that we are going to build on that land.”
The chief was discussing the shooting of Davis Maturi, who for months had been contact with the MPD about escalating harassment from his neighbor, John Sawchak.
MINNEAPOLIS — Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said his department “failed” after a man was shot, allegedly by his neighbor in the city.
“We failed this victim. 100%, because that should not have happened to him,” said O’Hara in a Sunday evening press conference.
The chief was discussing the shooting of Davis Moturi, who for months had been contact with the MPD about escalating harassment from his neighbor, John Sawchak.
Sawchak was charged with shooting Moturi as he was pruning a tree on his front yard on Oct. 23.
Moturi remains hospitalized with a fractured spine, two broken ribs, and a concussion.
O’Hara and the MPD came under a heavy attack from the Minneapolis City Council after it was revealed that the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office had charged Sawchak, but the MPD had not arrested him.
“MPD still has not arrested the suspect despite charges from the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office for Attempted Murder, 1st Degree Assault, Stalking, and Harassment and a request from the HCAO for a warrant with $1 million bail. MPD told the HCAO they do not intend to execute the warrant ‘for reasons of officer safety,’” said the letter from the Minneapolis City Council.
“We failed to act urgently enough,” said O’Hara, before citing staffing concerns as a contributing factor.
It was a stark difference from the tone the chief initially took on Friday, then saying “If we wound up in a deadly situation, the headlines would read ‘MPD shot mentally ill person’.”
On Sunday, O’Hara said his previous comments were meant as a response to accusations that the MPD “didn’t care,” about the case.
“This is the result of over-politicizing policing in Minneapolis,” said O’Hara.
O’Hara stated that the MPD will, for the moment, continue waiting for Sawchak to exit his home to arrest him, but the chief added “We are running out of options before we have to escalate the matter.”
The heated back-and-forth between the city council and the chief continued earlier Sunday when Minneapolis City Council member Emily Koski released a statement questioning O’Hara and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey actions in the matter.
“Our Chief of Police is hiding behind excuses, and our Mayor…is just hiding.” said Koski in the statement.
Cities across Minnesota expanded voting hours and locations for the upcoming presidential election.
MINNEAPOLIS — Expanded early voting hours and locations are giving Minnesotans more opportunities to cast their ballots before the general election.
Over 1,000 people visited Minneapolis Elections & Voter Services over the weekend to make their voice heard.
“We have always voted as a family. We have this right as Americans to vote, and we wanted him to know right from the get-go that you’ve got to vote in every single election because this is our voice, this is our opportunity to really pick the future that we want based on the candidate that we vote for,” said Kelly Wallander.
Kelly and her husband, Claude, picked up their son Harrison from college, so they could all vote in the general election for the first time as a family.
“It’s interesting. It’s cool to see elections on TV, basically as long as I can remember, and now know that I’m a part of it and being able to vote with my parents is cool,” Harrison said.
“I like voting early just because exactly you miss the line and you get it in there,” Claude said.
Director of Elections and Voter Services for the City of Minneapolis Katie Smith said the past two days have been busy.
“We’ve had really solid turnout. We’ve had about 42,000 people who have already voted in this election,” she said.
She anticipates next weekend will be even busier.
“Every year we kind of looking at how many people we’re planning for and how many people are coming through. We try to always expand our service hours as we get closer and closer to the election,” she said.
Smith said they’ve also started using pop-up voting locations to reach more people.
“In 2023, there was a legislative change that allows for us to have sites around the city that are open for different lengths of time as well as different dates form our main site. We’ve really taken the opportunity to host some one-day early vote pop-ups… in some unique and really great spaces throughout the city,” Smith said.
Sunday’s pop-up was at the Capri Theater. Paige Gayle voted here along with her sister.
“I like early voting because it’s convenient, it’s fast and it’s quick,” she said. “I work on actual election day, so for me it was important to get out beforehand.”
Smith said offering more voting opportunities for people in Minneapolis is crucial to their work.
“It’s so important to be able to offer all of these voting methods so that people can find something that works really well for them and make their voting plan,” Smith said.
Voters tell KARE 11 one of the perks to early voting is little to no wait. Voting early also gives them peace of mind and is one less thing to do on election day.
“It’s so much more convenient. This way I don’t have to worry about it. I’ll still be working on election day, so I would have had to go in before or after work. Now, I don’t have to worry about it. I know my vote will be counted,” Macy Bauers said.
Bauers said she votes in every election and hopes more people take advantage of early voting in the coming days.
The two adults who were killed were both male, according to the department, which is investigating the shooting.
MINNEAPOLIS — Three people were shot, two of them fatally in a Minneapolis encampment on Sunday afternoon, according to the Minneapolis Police Department.
The shooting occurred on the 4400 block of Snelling Avenue shortly after 3 p.m., said the MPD.
The two adults who were killed were both male, according to the department, which is investigating the shooting.
A woman was also taken to the hospital after the shooting and is in critical condition, said the MPD.
This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.
