Star Tribune
Nicolae Miu appeared shocked, scared after Apple River stabbing
Friends tubing with Nicolae Miu on the day he’s accused of slashing five people during a confrontation on Wisconsin’s Apple River said he was shocked and silent afterward.
Their testimony Friday began day five of Miu’s trial in St. Croix County Circuit Court, where the proceedings are expected to continue into next week.
Witnesses have shared gruesome details about the stabbings, including those surrounding the chaos that accompanied rescue efforts and witnesses’ struggle to document what happened.
Prosecutors charged Miu with intentional homicide and four counts of attempted intentional homicide in connection with the July 2022 incident that left 17-year-old Isaac Schuman dead and others seriously injured. He could face a life sentence.
Miu’s attorneys have argued that their client feared for his life and had the legal right to self-defense, and on Friday, called Ernesto Torres-Chaguez to testify to that.
Torres-Chaguez said he asked his best friend of 10 years to bring a pocket knife that day to cut twine used to hold their inner tubes together. He said he doubted Miu would ever try to harm someone.
Gilma Constanza testified that she was in the group tubing with Miu. She said she told police that she saw Miu toss something toward the riverbank after the fight and that he appeared scared when he returned.
Authorities recovered from the riverbank a pocket knife that may have been used in the assault.
At least 10 people were in Miu’s group, and they drifted close to Schuman’s group as they searched for a friend’s lost cellphone. Some of them had abandoned the search because they figured insurance would pay for the phone. But Miu, who reportedly brought a snorkel and goggles to look for any jewelry lost in the river, kept searching.
The missing phone belonged to Ariel Chaguez, who was near the fight. Chaguez thought Schuman’s group was bullying Miu before a blond woman in a black swimsuit yelled at him to leave. He said Miu defended himself from the woman but could not remember many details of what happened afterward as the confrontation escalated quickly.
“I remember that he fell to the water … I think that somebody was pushing him down,” Chaguez testified Friday, adding that Miu defended himself from a woman who tried to hit him.
“When we started walking back … on the other side of the river was the young man with the injury to his stomach. He was shouting, ‘Look what you did to me.’ He was yelling and shouting at Nic. And at that moment, the young guy fell to the water.”
Days after the stabbing, Sergio Ruiz-Leyva said he was part of Miu’s group. Ruiz-Leyva told police that Schuman’s group surrounded Miu as the blond woman in a black swimsuit told Miu to leave.
“Nic went up and pushed her,” Ruiz-Leyva said, according to interview transcripts read aloud Friday in court.
Ruiz-Leyva said he didn’t recall much of what happened afterward but said Miu and others sat in silence. When they asked what happened, Miu told them: “They had taken the knife away.”
Torres-Chaguez reportedly told police 17 times that someone took a knife from Miu, but said he didn’t remember when prosecutors asked.
“We didn’t talk about anything else,” Ruiz-Leyva said, adding that Miu donned the hat, jacket and sunglasses he wore before entering the river. “[Miu] looked pale when he got to us. His eyes wide open — he just sat there and didn’t talk anymore.”
He said he did not recall seeing injuries on Miu.
Further testimony suggests that Miu’s group stayed “for a long time” after the incident to try to help the injured.
Miu was arrested an hour later near the spot where tubers typically exit the river, telling St. Croix County Sheriff Scott Knudson that he heard, “Somebody got stabbed … and I fit the description.”
Members of Schuman’s tubing group said the confrontation began when Miu mentioned “looking for little girls,” but that was not shown on video played during the trial.
Star Tribune staff writer Matt McKinney contributed to this story.
The University of Minnesota has postponed a scheduled Tuesday night lecture from infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci after pro-Palestinian protests that included some protesters barricading Morrill Hall the day before.
On Monday night, several hundred pro-Palestinian protesters gathered at the building, which houses the Minneapolis campus’ administrative offices, as Students for a Democratic Society used tied-up patio furniture to form giant barricades blocking the building’s large front windows and its entrances. The protesters demanded the U divest from companies with ties to Israel. At least 11 of the protesters were arrested.
The university decided to postpone Fauci’s lecture set for Tuesday night because of “unexpected and complicated incidents” over the past day, university spokesman Jake Rickersaid in an email.
“Given the importance of this lecture and the unexpected and complicated incidents that occurred on campus in the past 24 hours, University officials determined it best to reschedule to ensure a great experience for attendees and our University community,” Ricker said.
All tickets for the lecture will be voided and information about the rescheduled date will be posted later, the university said in an online post about the postponement. Pre-paid parking will be automatically refunded, the university added.
Additional pro-Palestinian protests took place Tuesday afternoon at the university in front of Coffman Memorial Union. The protests prompted university officials to temporarily close down at least a dozen buildings in a Tuesday alert. Those included: Coffman Union, Weisman Museum, Hasselmo Hall, Ford Hall, Vincent Murphy Hall, Tate Lab, Morrill Hall, Northrop Auditorium, Johnston Hall, Walter Library, Smith Hall, and Kolthoff Hall. All other East Bank campus buildings were switched to keycard access only, according to the alert.
An anti-Fauci rally had also been planned by conservative group Action 4 Liberty to coincide with the lecture at the university, but that was moved after the lecture was canceled.
Star Tribune
Aunt IDs 3-year-old who was fatally shot in Minneapolis home, speaks about what happened
A close relative on Tuesday identified the 3-year-old boy who was fatally shot this week in his family’s northeast Minneapolis apartment a day earlier.
Woods said police have told the family that Jajuan got ahold of the gun and it went off.
“Someone left a loaded gun [in the home,” said Woods, who has started an online fundraiser for her sister, Charlotte Williams. “He got ahold of it thinking it was a toy.”
Woods said her nephew, who went by Junior, “loved trucks and dinosaurs. He was just so silly and goofy. He was a momma’s boy.”
Jajuan suffered a gunshot wound to the top of the head, a source with knowledge of the incident told the Star Tribune. Paramedics rushed the toddler to HCMC, where he died a short time later.
Woods said she did not know who owned the gun.
Police spokesman Trevor Folke said Tuesday evening there have been no arrests and had no update to share in the “active and ongoing investigation.”
Bergman is championing efforts to boost literacy and invest in early childhood programming, and getting there, she said, requires financial sustainability, and that may mean closings and mergers. She attended last week’s finance committee meeting — as she’s done on a regular basis — and described the mention of “opportunity” as another rosy way of avoiding hard truths.
The district is spread too thin, she said. Some schools could take more students. Yet in others, class sizes are huge and caseloads so large that educators can’t build relationships with students and families, she said.
“I just fundamentally believe, and it’s been one of the objectives of my campaign, to be someone out in the community talking about this moment, listening to reactions, and listening for the places where families could get on board with the possibility of their beloved school having to close,” she said.
A way to get there, Bergman said, is by consolidating buildings, and in turn, expanding programming — perhaps not far from the school left behind.
Callahan argues that the mere mention of closings is causing families to leave the district: “This is not something that should be talked about so flippantly,” she said.
She said she would entertain the idea only if there also are plans to stabilize and recruit students, plus answers to three questions: How much money is being saved by closing a building? How many students will be retained if the school closes? And how many new students have to enroll to keep it open?
