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VP Kamala Harris will tour Minnesota abortion clinic
Harris’ trip to Minnesota is part of a nationwide tour she began in January to draw attention to fallout after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
MINNEAPOLIS — Editor’s note: The video above first aired on KARE 11 in January 2024.
Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday plans to tour a Minnesota clinic that performs abortions and provides other reproductive care as Democrats play up their opposition to the rollback of abortion rights in an effort to help reelect President Joe Biden in November.
Her visit to a Planned Parenthood facility in the Twin Cities will be the first time that a president or vice president has been to a reproductive health clinic, according to Harris’ office.
The vice president’s trip to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area is part of a nationwide tour she began in January to draw attention to fallout after the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority in 2022 overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that legalized abortion nationwide. The decision cleared the way for Republican-led states to enact limitations or bans on the procedure.
Harris, the first woman elected vice president, has been the Democratic administration’s loudest voice condemning the court’s decision, arguing that the government has no right to tell a woman what she can do with her body. While Biden has vowed to be the president who restores the protections of Roe, he tends to talk about the “right to choose” instead of saying “abortion.”
Abortion rights have proved to be a potent issue driving voters to the polls and boosting Democrats ever since the high court ended the constitutional right to the procedure nearly two years ago. The issue could be pivotal in the presidential race and congressional contests this year.
In Minnesota, the vice president planned to visit a health center during operating hours. Her office declined to identify the exact facility before she arrives there, citing security reasons. The center provides a range of services, including abortion, birth control and preventative wellness care.
Harris was scheduled to tour the facility, speak with staff and be briefed on how Minnesota has been affected by abortion bans in surrounding states. Her office said she’ll talk about what the Biden administration has done to protect reproductive rights.
She also was scheduled to speak at a Biden-Harris campaign event in St. Paul tailored to women.
There are no restrictions on abortion at any stage of pregnancy in Minnesota. Biden won the state by 7 percentage points in 2020 on the way to defeating then-President Donald Trump, a Republican.
Biden and Trump each have now won enough delegates to be considered their parties’ presumptive nominees for president, setting up a rematch in November.
Biden and his Democratic surrogates have been highlighting comments by Trump in which the former president takes credit for presiding over the end of Roe. Trump put three conservative justices on the high court, tipping its ideological balance in favor of eliminating a woman’s constitutional right to end a pregnancy with its 2022 decision in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
Since then, Democrats have felt encouraged by electoral victories in 2022 and 2023 when abortion access was on the ballot. And in his State of the Union address last week, Biden vowed that “we’ll win again in 2024.”
In the speech, he also said that if voters “send me a Congress that supports the right to choose, I promise you I will restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land again.”
In Minnesota, Gov. Tim Walz enshrined the right to abortion and other reproductive health care into state law in Jan. 2023 when he signed a bill meant to ensure that the state’s existing protections remain in place no matter who sits on future courts.
Democratic leaders took advantage of their new control of both houses of the Legislature to rush the bill through in the first month of the 2023 legislative session. They credited the backlash against the U.S. Supreme Court decision to reverse Roe v. Wade for their takeover of the state Senate and for keeping their House majority in a year when Republicans expected to make gains.
Abortion is currently illegal in more than a dozen states, including Minnesota neighbors North Dakota and South Dakota, and is restricted in Iowa and Wisconsin. Minnesota has experienced a surge of patients coming to the state for abortions because of restrictions elsewhere.
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John Sawchak faces four felony charges after officials said he shot his neighbor on Grand Avenue South while trimming a tree on their shared property line.
MINNEAPOLIS — A man is recovering in the hospital after being shot outside his home in a dispute with a neighbor on Grand Avenue South in Minneapolis on Oct. 23.
According to a criminal complaint, Minneapolis police responded to a hospital for a report of a gunshot victim on Wednesday night. The injured man had been transported from his home on Grand Avenue South for an unknown medical condition that caused him to collapse. The man was found in the fetal position by his wife when she got home from work that evening.
Officials later identified the victim as Davis Maturi.
At the hospital, providers found a small puncture wound in the back of Maturi’s neck that led to the discovery of a bullet lodged near his spine. When he arrived at the hospital, he couldn’t recall what led up to him being shot, according to the criminal complaint.
Maturi’s wife told officials that he had been outside earlier in the day pruning a tree near their property line with a chainsaw. She said their neighbor, John Herbert Sawchak, 54, had “almost certainly” shot her husband.
In the previous week, Maturi’s wife said Sawchak told her husband “Touch my tree again and I’ll kill you.”
The criminal complaint goes on to detail numerous complaints of harassment the Maturi’s experienced since purchasing their house in September 2023.
Oct. 11, 2023: Maturi approached Sawchak to discuss the tree on their property line. Sawchak became irate, according to the criminal complaint, yelling at Maturi and using “racially charged language.” Sawchak told Maturi if he “touched” the tree, Sawchak would “take care of” him.
March 1, 2024: Sawchak approached Maturi while he was working outside his house on a ladder. While verbally harassing him, officials said Sawchak told Maturi that he would put him in the hospital.
April 5, 2024: Sawchak threw household items at Maturi from his 2nd-floor window.
May 28, 2024: Sawchak verbally threatened Maturi, calling him “a Black bastard,” and telling him “I’m going to kill you if you call the police again. All you people do is lie and commit crimes.”
Aug. 7, 2024: Sawchak verbally threatened Maturi from his 2nd story window. Maturi saw Sawchak holding up a large knife in the window while threatening to kill Maturi and his wife.
Oct. 8, 2024: Sawchak verbally threatened and screamed racial slurs at Maturi from his 2nd-floor window. Sawchak also, once again, brandished a knife from his window while threatening to kill Maturi.
Oct. 14, 2024: Maturi saw Sawchak outside Maturi’s home with a firearm. Sawchak pointed the firearm at Maturi through the window.
On the evening of Oct. 23, Maturi’s wife went home to pack some things and leave for the night, officials said. Sawchak verbally harassed her and shone a stone light on her as she left her home, the criminal complaint read. The next day, Maturi and his wife were able to access home security footage from their home cameras. The video shows Maturi working outside near the tree at the property line with his back to Sawchak’s home. A faint “crack” or “pop” can be heard, then Maturi collapsed to the ground.
Maturi remains hospitalized with a fractured spine, two broken ribs, and a concussion. He talked to KARE 11 from his hospital bed and said he feels the police failed to protect his family by not arresting Sawchak during one of the various other incidents.
“If you’re saying you’re scared, what does that do to me?” Maturi said. “You have this body armor, you have professional training… when I call for assistance, when I called for having a knife pointed at me, I had to wait hours and hours and hours.”
As of Sunday morning, Sawchak is not in police custody. According to the criminal complaint, Sawchak has at least three active warrants associated with prior threats or acts of violence against Matsuri and other neighbors. Sawchak has “actively evaded” police during their prior attempts to contact or arrest him.
A letter from ranking members of the Minneapolis City Council to Mayor Jacob Frey showed anger and blame directed at the Minneapolis police department for allegedly failing to act on Maturi’s numerous complaints against Sawchak before the shooting, and failing to arrest him immediately after the shooting.
“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.
Watch Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara’s response below:
Police are investigating after three men were shot early on Saturday morning.
MINNEAPOLIS — Minneapolis police are investigating after three men were shot in the Ventura Village neighborhood early Saturday morning.
According to Minneapolis police, officers were called to the area around East 21st Street and South 15th Avenue around 5 a.m. Saturday.
Officers found three men had been shot. One of the men died and the two others were taken to the hospital with what police described as life-threatening injuries.
Officials said the shooting happened at a small homeless encampment.
Police have not announced any arrests as of Saturday morning.
KARE 11 will update this story as more information is made available.
This Halloween the chocolate shop is getting very festive.
MARINE ON SAINT CROIX, Minn. — A small sweet shop in a Minnesota river town has won some BIG awards for its chocolates.
St. Croix Chocolate Company in Marine on St. Croix has won national and international awards including Best of Show in this year’s America’s Division of the International Chocolate Awards.
Their chocolates are available at the St. Croix Chocolate Company kitchen or online.
This Halloween they are selling a Halloween Countdown Calendar that features 14 prize-winning recipes made into ghosts, bats, skulls and other spooky configurations. They also have a Boo Bag-handled tote that comes with their “best of” Halloween assortment.
Owner and Chocolatier, Robyn Dochterman, joined KARE 11 Saturday to share what St. Croix Chocolate Company has to offer.
