Star Tribune
Minnesota penalizes county jail for depriving inmate of food and water for more than 2 days
ST. PAUL, Minn. — The Minnesota Department of Corrections has penalized a county jail for depriving an inmate of food and water for more than two days as punishment after he smeared feces in his cell and refused to clean it up.
The department ordered the Otter Tail County Jail in Fergus Falls to transfer all current inmates to new facilities by the close of business Thursday. The jail will be allowed to keep new inmates no more than 72 hours, excluding holidays and weekends, until the state agency approves.
According to the department inspector general’s order, on Saturday, Feb. 10 the inmate threw feces on the inside of his cell door and smeared it on his cell window, and underneath his cell door into the jail’s dayroom area. Jail staff told him they weren’t going to feed him until he cleaned it up, but he refused.
Not only did jail employees withhold six straight meals from the inmate, the report said, he told an inspector that he was forced to drink toilet water and his own urine because the water to his cell was shut off. Jail staff saw him ”ingesting his own feces” on the second day, a Sunday, according to the report. Staff documented that they saw him licking the feces off his cell window, and that he said it was because he was hungry.
But staff did not contact medical staff about his potential physical and mental health conditions until the following Tuesday. He also was denied a daily shower.
The order noted that state regulations strictly prohibit withholding food from detainees as punishment. It said the jail’s failure to comply ”has contributed to conditions that have the potential to pose an imminent risk of life-threatening harm or serious physical injury to individuals confined or incarcerated in the facility if left uncorrected.”
Otter Tail County Sheriff Barry Fitzgibbons said in a statement Wednesday that his staff will follow the state’s orders.
”I sincerely regret this incident occurred,” Fitzgibbons said in a statement. ”Otter Tail County Sheriff’s office is dedicated to preserving the safety and security of our staff and our inmates. We will work closely with the DOC to ensure the requirements outlined in their order are being implemented.”
The incident came to light Feb. 20 when the jail administrator contacted the Department of Corrections to self-report the staff actions and told the agency she had launched an internal investigation with the help of local law firm. The department decided it would also conduct its own review.
The inmate, whose name was not released, was transferred to a jail in a neighboring county. The reason he was being held was not detailed in the order, except ”he had disciplinary time left to serve from a previous term of incarceration.”
The sheriff’s statement did not dispute the state’s findings. His office did not immediately respond to follow-up messages on whether any staff had been disciplined, why the inmate was being held and whether he had mental health issues.
Corrections officials ordered refresher and remedial training for jail staff, including on proper supervision of inmates, inmate rights and recognizing the signs of mental illness.
Restoration of the jail’s license to resume normal operations will depend on the completion of all corrective actions ordered and assurance that a plan has been created to prevent such an incident from happening again, the order said.
Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and her daughter were among the throngs Friday as President Joe Biden delivered the apology that many Indigenous Americans thought would never come.
“I think he really said the things that people have been waiting to hear for generations, acknowledged just the horror and trauma of literally having our children stolen from our communities,” said Flanagan, a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe. “It’s a powerful first step towards healing.”
Hundreds of boarding schools operated in the 19th and 20th centuries, separating Indigenous children from their families and forcing them to assimilate to European ways. Many children were abused, and at least 973 died, according to a report from the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Other Minnesotans reacted similarly to Flanagan, saying they welcomed the apology but that additional action is needed to help Indigenous people move forward.
Anton Treuer, a professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University, wrote in a newsletter that the apology was “a welcome first step on the journey to healing.”
“There is no way to truly right historical injustices for the children buried at Carlisle, Haskell, and other schools, but these words set a new tone for the country and will help heal the anguish so many Natives have carried for so long,” Treuer wrote. “It gives me hope that we can come together to reconcile and heal our troubled nation.”
Sen. Mary Kunesh, DFL-New Brighton, the first Indigenous woman to serve in the state Senate, called Biden’s apology encouraging.
“This recognition of past wrongdoings is an important step towards healing relationships between the United States and the sovereign nations affected by these past systems,” Kunesh said in a statement. “This dark period of American history must be remembered and taught.”
“I have done everything in my power to remedy this situation, and it continues to get more and more violent by the day,” Moturi wrote. “There have been numerous times when I’ve seen Sawchak outside and contacted law enforcement, and there was no response. I am not confident in the pursuit of Sawchak given that Sawchak attacked me, MPD officers had John detained, and despite an HRO and multiple warrants — they still let him go.”
On Friday, five City Council members sent a letter to Mayor Jacob Frey and Police Chief Brian O’Hara expressing their “utter horror at MPD’s failure to protect a Minneapolis resident from a clear, persistent and amply reported threat posed by his neighbor.”
Council Members Andrea Jenkins, Elliott Payne, Aisha Chughtai, Jason Chavez and Robin Wonsley went on to allege that police had failed to submit reports to the County Attorney’s Office despite threats being made with weapons, and at times while Sawchak screamed racial slurs. Sawchak is white and Moturi is Black.
The council members also contend in their letter that the MPD told the County Attorney’s Office that police did not intend to execute the warrant for “reasons of officer safety.”
At a Friday afternoon news conference at MPD’s Fifth Precinct, O’Hara said police had been working to arrest Sawchak since at least April, but “no Minneapolis police officers have had in-person contact with that suspect since the victim in this case has been calling us.” The chief pointed out that Sawchak is mentally ill, has guns and refuses to cooperate “in the dozens of times that police officers have responded to the residence.”
O’Hara put aside the option to carry out “a high-risk warrant based on these factors [and] the likelihood of an armed, violent confrontation where we may have to use deadly force with the suspect.” The preference, he said, was to arrest Sawchak outside his home, but “in this case, this suspect is a recluse and does not come out of the house.”
ROCHESTER – The Federal Transit Administration has green-lighted an $85 million grant supporting the development of the city’s planned Link Bus Rapid Transit system.
The FTA formally announced the grant on Friday during a ceremonial check presentation outside of the Mayo Civic Center, one of the seven stops planned for the bus line. The federal grant will cover about 60% of the project’s estimated $143.4 million price tag, with the remaining funds coming from Destination Medical Center, the largest public-private development project in state history.
Set to go live in 2026, the 2.8-mile Link system will connect downtown Rochester, including Mayo Clinic’s campuses, with a proposed “transit village” that will include parking, hundreds of housing units and a public plaza. The bus line will be the first of its kind outside the Twin Cities — with service running every five minutes during peak hours.
“That means you may not even need to look at a schedule,” said Veronica Vanterpool, deputy administrator for the FTA. “You can just show up at your transit stop and expect the next bus to come in a short time. That is a game changer and a life-transformational experience in transit for those people who are using it and relying on it.”
The planned Second Street corridor is already one of the busiest roads in Rochester, carrying more than 21,800 vehicles a day, and city planners have talked for years about ways to reduce traffic congestion in the city’s downtown. Local officials estimate that the transit line, which will rely on a fleet of all-electric buses, will handle 11,000 riders on its first day of operation and save eight city blocks of parking.
Speaking to a crowd of about 100 people gathered on Friday, Sen. Amy Klobuchar said the project shows Rochester is thinking strategically about how it handles growth.
“If you just plan the business expansion, and you don’t have the workforce, you don’t have the child care, the housing or the transit, it’s not going to work very well as a lot of communities across the nation have found,” Klobuchar said.
