Star Tribune
Gruesome video shown at trial on fatal Apple River stabbing
A graphic video depicting the final moments of teenager Isaac Schuman’s life was shown in St. Croix County Circuit Court on Monday, the opening day of Nicolae Miu’s trial. The 54-year-old Prior Lake man is charged with stabbing Schuman and four others in a 2022 fight on the Apple River.
Filmed from just a few feet away by a friend of Schuman’s, the three-minute, 25-second cellphone video shows how an encounter between Miu and a group of teenage boys quickly and chaotically turned from shouting to pushing and shoving to violent stabbings.
Even as people fall into the water and the river turns red with blood, some bystanders don’t seem to understand what’s happening as the confrontation turns fatal.
“Is this real?” one person shouts amid yelling and screaming in the incident’s immediate aftermath.
Schuman, stabbed once in the torso with such force that the knife went through two ribs and his heart, died almost immediately, prosecutors revealed Monday. He was 17.
The trial is expected to last two weeks, and a conviction could mean life in prison for Miu, who has claimed self-defense. A jury of 14 people were chosen Monday morning, with St. Croix County Circuit Court Judge R. Michael Waterman telling the eight men and six women that two of the jurors will be deemed alternates.
It was clear on Monday that the video shot by Schuman’s friend Jawahn Cockfield will play a central role in the case, as both the prosecution and defense said it would help prove their version of what happened.
In his opening statement Monday, St. Croix County District Attorney Karl E. Anderson said jurors would come to see the incident as a “senseless and horrific act of violence when all Nicolae had to do was walk away.”
After positioning a large photograph of Schuman before the jury, Anderson said jurors would hear how Miu came near Schuman’s group while they were drifting down the river in inner tubes and didn’t respond when the boys asked him what he was doing. Their worries escalated as they shouted at Miu to go away and he didn’t leave, Anderson said. A second group of tubers was drawn to the confrontation and soon some 13 people stood in the shallow river near Miu and shouted at him to go, saying it some 20 times before the fight broke out, Anderson said.
Anderson then walked jurors through a series of images pulled from the video while describing many of the same allegations laid out in the criminal complaint. Miu initially walked away but then turned and, holding his goggles and snorkel in his mouth, ran a few steps back to the group of high school boys as they taunted him, Anderson said.
As a fight broke out, Miu was knocked to the ground. The video shows he had pulled a knife from his pocket by this point, and as people come near or put their hands on Miu to push him, he slashes at them with the knife, stabbing Schuman, Rhyley Mattison, A.J. Martin, Dante Carlson and Tony Carlson. The others were hospitalized for up to a month as they recovered from serious wounds, Anderson said.
Miu then walked away from the scene as people screamed or called 911 for help. Miu can be seen in the video walking to one side of the river and tossing something into the woods near a spot where investigators later found a knife. Anderson went on to show how Miu left the scene and told the group of people he was with, including his wife, Sondra, to continue down the river. Miu was found about an hour later at the point where tubers exit the river and was taken into custody.
Miu’s defense attorney, Aaron Nelson, said the video tells a different story, that Miu was alone in the water with 13 strangers. “Thirteen drunk, angry strangers,” Nelson said. He shared biographical details of Miu’s life, including that he immigrated to the United States as a teenager from Romania and can speak five languages.
An autopsy found Schuman’s blood-alcohol level at .219%, Nelson said, and other members of his group acknowledged they were drinking and some were using marijuana that day.
Nelson said the boys were taunting Miu with names, calling him a predator and saying that he was “looking for little girls.” When the fight broke out, Miu was knocked into the water and “in that moment he feared for his life and he responded in self-defense,” Nelson said.
Miu was only looking for a friend’s phone that had fallen in the water when the incident began, Nelson said. The boys could have left him alone and continued down the river but they chose to stay and harass Miu, Nelson said. “They stay to heckle, they stay to intimidate,” he said.
Miu eventually stood up, and Nelson pointed to an image from the video that he said showed Schuman’s hands reaching for Miu’s neck. Nelson said this was Schuman’s attempt to strangle Miu.
The trial continues Tuesday as the prosecution calls more witnesses to support its case.
Miu faces one count of intentional first degree homicide for Schuman’s death, and four counts of attempted first degree intentional homicide for the other stabbings.
Star Tribune
Falcon Heights, St. Anthony renew police contract that ended following Philando Castile’s killing by police
Years after their contentious split, St. Anthony police officers will once again patrol the city of Falcon Heights.
St. Anthony had policed the neighboring suburb for more than 20 years until the two cities severed their agreement after Castile was killed during a 2016 traffic stop in Falcon Heights.
Ever since, Falcon Heights has been paying the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office to police the small city that surrounds the State Fairgrounds. But Sheriff Bob Fletcher has urged the city for years to find a more permanent arraignment. Sheriff’s deputies do not patrol any of the neighboring towns and suburbs around Falcon Heights, which makes the city difficult to staff with deputies often having to travel long distances to respond to emergencies, the Sheriff’s Office has said.
The city and the Sheriff’s Office first mutually agreed to part ways in 2021, but Falcon Heights couldn’t find another agency take over until now. The city of about 5,000 has long said that it would be impractical to try to create its own police force.
Falcon Heights Mayor Randy Gustafson said he is excited the city will once again have “a community-oriented policing model.”
“That’s something I’ve wanted to see returned and our community wanted to see returned,” he said. “And this gives us that chance.”
The contract will cost Falcon Heights roughly $1.8 million a year. St. Anthony officials estimate the department will need to add nine more officers and will ask for Falcon Heights’ financial help in upgrading its police facilities.
“We want to continue to be a welcoming, inclusive community,” Mayor Wendy Webstersaid. “And at the same time, we know we have a tremendous need for affordable housing.”
Webster and some on the council also said they were worried about project leaders not having immediate plans to build an outdoor playground, arguing that was a necessary amenity for children. And council members said the agreement must include plans to address the environmental condition on the site, which city leaders say has contamination issues.
“The thing I am most careful and concerned about is you are also buying a polluted piece of land. I want to make sure you are safe in your facilities,” Council Member Lona Doolan said, adding that “if it was any other property in our community, I wouldn’t have any hesitation or reservation.”
The council approved the rezoning request with several requirements, including that a playground be constructed within two years, and that the city receive plans for parking, staffing, and added landscaping, as well as environmental reports with proposals on addressing the pollution concerns.
Star Tribune
US confirms North Korea has sent 3,000 troops to Russia for training and possible Ukraine combat
WASHINGTON — The U.S. said Wednesday that 3,000 North Korean troops have deployed to Russia and are training at several locations, calling the move very serious and warning that those forces will be ”fair game” if they go into combat in Ukraine.
The deployment raises the potential for the North Koreans to join Russian forces in Ukraine and suggests expanded military ties between the two nations as Moscow seeks weapons and troops to gain ground in a grinding war that has stalemated after more than two years.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called it a ”next step” after the North has provided Russia with arms, and said Pyongyang could face consequences for aiding Russia directly. His comments were the first public U.S. confirmation of North Korea sending troops to Russia — a development South Korean officials disclosed but was denied by Pyongyang and Moscow.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said the U.S. believes that at least 3,000 North Korean soldiers traveled by ship to Vladivostok, Russia’s largest Pacific port, in early to mid-October.
”These soldiers then traveled onward to multiple Russian military training sites in eastern Russia, where they are currently undergoing training,” Kirby said. ”We do not yet know whether these soldiers will enter into combat alongside the Russian military, but this is certainly a highly concerning probability.”
Kirby said they could go to western Russian and then engage in combat against Ukraine’s forces, but both he and Austin said the U.S. continues to assess the situation.
Exactly what the North Korean troops are doing in Russia was ”left to be seen,” Austin told reporters in Rome.
He added: ”If they’re co-belligerents, their intention is to participate in this war on Russia’s behalf, that is a very, very serious issue, and it will have impacts not only in Europe, it will also impact things in the Indo-Pacific.”
