Star Tribune
Loring Park cashier impaled, killed with golf club remembered as devoted community fixture
A grocery store cashier and Loring Park neighborhood fixture was killed by a man who allegedly impaled him with a golf club Friday afternoon, while the suspect with a history of mental illness is now jailed on suspicion of murder following a standoff.
Neighbors described the victim, 66-year-old Robert Skafte, as a friendly and familiar face at the Oak Grove Grocery for decades, leaving them shocked and saddened at the gruesome crime.
“We are broken; our hearts are broken,” said Manuela Torres, who lived next door to the store and said she was friends with Skafte.
Officers responded just before 1 p.m. to reports of a stabbing inside the store at 218 Oak Grove St. They found a man behind the counter with a golf club through his torso, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said at a Friday night press briefing.
First responders provided aid until the cashier was transported to HCMC, where he later died, O’Hara said.
Early investigation found that the suspect had gathered some items in the store and went up to the counter before attacking the victim with the golf club, O’Hara said.
“It appears he then went behind the counter and then began to assault and bludgeon the individual behind the counter in a very grotesque way,” O’Hara said.
Police have not identified a motive, the chief added. “We will do our best to try and make sense of this, but this is horrific and absolutely senseless,” O’Hara said.
Stephanie Grey, who danced with Skafte as members of the Ballet of the Dolls troupe, said Saturday morning that he also was an occasional actor on local stages, and “was one of my dearest friends.”
Angela Otis, who lives across the street, said she saw through the window that the cashier had blood on his face. When he was brought out, she said, she saw he had a golf club sticking out from both sides.
Officers tracked the suspect to the apartment building across the street, where police say the 44-year-old barricaded himself.
After a nearly 6-hour-long standoff, he was arrested without incident, O’Hara said. Police used crisis negotiators, a SWAT team, drones and a bomb squad, according to police. The chief said he does not know if the suspect had any other weapons during the standoff. He was booked in the Hennepin County Jai on suspicion of murder, where his booking photo shows apparent cuts to his face. The Star Tribune generally does not identify suspects before they are charged.
According to emergency dispatch audio, the call at 12:55 to 218 Oak Grove Street originated as “unknown trouble” involving a victim where a metal pole was “stuck in him,” before medics confirmed it was a golf club. Police quickly identified the suspect at his residence across the street at 215 Oak Grove, who also was the subject of a person in crisis welfare check after he called 911 “wanting to speak to the FBI, refused to give further information.” He refused to come out of his 16th floor apartment when police arrived and a negotiator was called on scene.
Other than a drunken driving arrest, records show no criminal history for the suspect in Minnesota. He was ordered civilly committed for mental illness in Anoka County in January 2021, with a provisional discharge the following March. Court records show that at the time of the killing, he lived in a unit at neighboring 215 Oak Grove Street and was issued an eviction summons in November after his lease was not renewed. On Nov. 30 he failed to appear at a housing court hearing and was ordered evicted.
A memorial for Skafte was set up outside the store Friday night with candles, flowers and his photo. Torres was crying loudly as about a dozen neighbors gathered.
A similar outpouring of grief took place on social media, where Skafte was remembered someone who “cared deeply about his neighborhood and everyone in it—regardless of whether he knew you or not,” wrote one friend, Bill Holmes.
Skafte was not only graceful dancing ballet, Holmes continued, “he embodied grace in a human form throughout his life,” including when he started the Stevens Square Farmers Market roughly 16 years ago.
“Throughout the darkest moments of police and community violence, the civil uprising and the pandemic, Robert remained a beacon of glowing community and stability at Oak Grove Grocery,” Holmes wrote on Facebook. “He was there when I needed a soda, a social interaction, and someone to remind me of the power of goodness in the world. Though times were dark, the world was still good and Robert was living proof of that goodness with the most subtle yet powerful gestures.”
A couple apartments down, resident Justine Moran said she was having trouble processing the loss. She would often go inside for snacks and found all the employees to be friendly, she said.
“He was very kind, like everyone in there, honestly,” Moran said while sitting on a stoop with her dog. “It just feels very empty.”
Skafte would water the flowers along the sidewalk every day, Otis said, and she would often see him come outside to write a new saying on the chalk board outside the grocery.
“I looked at him as a brother,” Otis said. “I used to just sit in the store, BS with him, and he was always happy, he never made anyone sad.”
Torres said she wishes she could have been there to intervene, and that she thinks others in the neighborhood would have stepped in.
“I can tell you with certainty that if any one of us had been here, we would have taken a knife” for Skafte, Torres said.
Torres added that there was a period where he helped her out when she was struggling with mental illness.
“He picked me up,” she said. “And when I wouldn’t come in for two months, three months, he would say, where have you been?”
This was the 66th homicide in Minneapolis so far in 2023, according to the Star Tribune’s database. It’s also the fourth homicide in the last week.
Star Tribune
Biden calls out Musk over a published report that the Tesla CEO once worked in the US illegally
NEW YORK — President Joe Biden slammed Elon Musk for hypocrisy on immigration after a published report that the Tesla CEO once worked illegally in the United States. The South Africa-born Musk denies the allegation.
”That wealthiest man in the world turned out to be an illegal worker here. No, I’m serious. He was supposed to be in school when he came on a student visa. He wasn’t in school. He was violating the law. And he’s talking about all these illegals coming our way?” Biden said while campaigning on Saturday in Pittsburgh at a union hall.
The Washington Post reported that Musk worked illegally in the country while on a student visa. The newspaper, citing company documents, former business associates and court documents, said Musk arrived in Palo Alto, California in 1995 for a graduate program at Stanford University “but never enrolled in courses, working instead on his startup. ”
Musk wrote on X in reply to a video post of Biden’s comments: ”I was in fact allowed to work in the US.” Musk added, ”The Biden puppet is lying.”
Investors in Musk’s company, Zip2, were concerned about the possibility of their founder being deported, according to the report, and gave him a deadline for obtaining a work visa. The newspaper also cited a 2005 email from Musk to his Tesla co-founders acknowledging that he did not have authorization to be in the U.S. when he started Zip2.
According to the account, that email was submitted as evidence in a now-closed California defamation lawsuit and said that Musk had apllied to Stanford so he could stay in the country legally.
Musk is today the world’s richest man. He has committed more than $70 million to help Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and other GOP candidates win on Nov. 5, and is one of the party’s biggest donors this campaign season. He has been headlining events in the White House race’s final stretch, often echoing Trump’s dark rhetoric against immigration.
Trump has pledged to give Musk a role in his administration if he wins next month.
The only debate between DFL U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar and GOP challenger Royce White started Sunday on the street outside WCCO Radio.
As White approached the building, he loudly called some two dozen flag-waving and cheering Klobuchar supporters a “whole lot of commies.” The 33-year-old provocateur and podcaster also told them to thank Republican former Vice President Dick Cheney — who endorsed Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris — because there was “no chance in hell” that Harris would defeat Republican former President Donald Trump on Nov. 5.
Klobuchar, 64, had arrived moments earlier, smiling and wishing “good morning” to her supporters. Once inside, the two took questions for an hour from moderator Blois Olson. Their tone was generally polite with White often interrupting a Klobuchar response with, “rebuttal,” indicated he wanted to respond.
The senator repeatedly raised White’s claims on X, formerly Twitter, that “The bad guys won in World War II” and that there were “no good guys in that war.” She called that stance offensive to veterans.
U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar arrives at WCCO Radio for a debate with Royce White in Minneapolis on Sunday, Oct. 27. (Richard Tsong-Taatarii)
Klobuchar, who is seeking a fourth six-year term, portrayed herself as a pragmatist. She opened by saying that we live in “incredibly divisive times politically” but that she has listened and worked with Republicans to bring down shipping costs, drug prices for seniors and to help veterans and push for more housing and child care.
“Courage in this next few years is not going to be standing by yourself yelling at people,” she said, her opening allusion to White’s rhetoric, which she said is often vulgar.
White, a former NBA player, is a political novice, but a close ally of Steve Bannon, the jailed former chief strategist for Trump and right wing media executive. Last summer, White won the state GOP endorsement to run against Klobuchar.
“Our country’s coming undone at the seams. I think we can change that,” White said in his opening statement. He said he threatens the status quo, decried the “permanent political class” and referred to the two major parties as the “uniparty.”
Other buildings destroyed at Khojir and Parchin likely included buildings where Iran used industrial mixers to create the solid fuel needed for its extensive ballistic missile arsenal, Eveleth said.
In a statement issued immediately after the attack Saturday, the Israeli military said it targeted ”missile manufacturing facilities used to produce the missiles that Iran fired at the state of Israel over the last year.”
Destroying such sites could greatly disrupt Iran’s ability to manufacture new ballistic missiles to replenish its arsenal after the two attacks on Israel. Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which oversees the country’s ballistic missile program, has been silent since Saturday’s attack.
Iran’s overall ballistic missile arsenal, which includes shorter-range missiles unable to reach Israel, was estimated to be ”over 3,000” by Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, then-commander of the U.S. military’s Central Command, in testimony to the U.S. Senate in 2022. In the time since, Iran has fired hundreds of the missiles in a series of attacks.
There have been no videos or photos posted to social media of missile parts or damage in civilian neighborhoods following the recent attack — suggesting that the Israeli strikes were far more accurate that Iran’s ballistic missile barrages targeting Israel in April and October. Israel relied on aircraft-fired missiles during its attack.
However, one factory appeared to have been hit in Shamsabad Industrial City, just south of Tehran near Imam Khomeini International Airport, the country’s main gateway to the outside world. Online videos of the damaged building corresponded to an address for a firm known as TIECO, which advertises itself as building advanced machinery used in Iran’s oil and gas industry.
