Star Tribune
Cougar killed on I-394 will become part of Minneapolis Parks exhibit
Cam Winton and others who live in the Minneapolis neighborhood where a cougar was seen earlier this month were saddened when the big cat was struck and killed by a motorist as it crossed a freeway west of downtown.
“Plenty of people were heartbroken,” said Winton, who lives near where the cougar was seen on home security video sauntering across a driveway in the Lowry Hill neighborhood in the early morning hours of Dec. 4. “A lot of people wanted to see a happier ending to the story.”
Now the large cat will live on, in a sense.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources approved a request from the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board to receive the remains of the 2-year-old male cougar, said Dan Stark, a large-carnivore specialist with the DNR.
In the coming months, the DNR will transfer the mountain lion to the Park Board, which plans to create an educational display featuring the cougar that will be on view at city recreation centers and other facilities, said spokeswoman Robin Smothers.
“I think this is a good opportunity to tell the story about cougars in Minnesota and ones that wander through the state, and to provide a connection to the community where it attracted attention,” Stark said.
Cougar sightings in Minnesota are extremely rare, Stark said. The cougar seen in Minneapolis this month was fatally struck while crossing I-394 near Theodore Wirth Parkway on Dec. 6. It was believed to be only the third cougar identified in Hennepin County since 2004. A tag on the cat’s ear revealed that he had traveled 650 miles from the Oglala National Grasslands in northwest Nebraska to Minneapolis.
The cat’s appearance attracted a large following on social media and generated several news stories.
“We were rooting for the cougar,” Winton said. The death “was a terrible thing.”
Winton had an idea. He called the DNR to see if it would be possible for the agency to give the cat to the Park Board. Then he called the Park Board to gauge its interest. The board said yes, and took things from there.
Winton is providing some help. He told neighbors about the idea for a display and circulated flyers asking donors to contribute $11,700 to cover the costs of taxidermy, shipping and signage for the display.
“The Park Board has done a wonderful job of springing into action and leading this initiative for the benefit of all city residents,” Winton said in an interview.
Park Board officials said they are not sure what to make of the whole situation, but they are going with it.
“Many of us were captivated by the prospect of such a majestic animal living among us and were saddened to hear how it met its end,” said Park Board Superintendent Al Bangoura. “Now, there is an opportunity to give the story a happier ending. I’m appreciative of the DNR and community members coming together to help educate future generations on the wonderful variety of wildlife that can be found in our city.”
Checks written to the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board with the words “mountain lion” in the memo line can be mailed to Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, Attn: Customer Service-Mountain Lion, 2117 W. River Road N., Minneapolis, MN, 55411.
Contributions can also be made by credit and debit cards over the phone at 612-230-6400. Gifts are tax deductible.
The preference, he said, was to arrest Sawchak outside, but “in this case, this suspect is a recluse and does not come out of the house.”
City Council members criticized MPD for their handling of the case, expressing outrage at the department’s inability to protect a resident “from a clear, persistent and amply reported threat posed by his neighbor.”
The Moturis have reported to police at least 19 incidents of vandalism, property destruction, theft, harassment, hate speech and other verbal threats, including threats of assault, involving Sawchak since last fall — shorty after the couple moved in. Sawchak is white and Moturi is Black.
Over the weekend, as frustration continued to boil over about the lack of a resolution in the case, several more council members released statements demanding that MPD move in to make an arrest.
“Our Chief of Police is hiding behind excuses, and our Mayor…is just hiding,” Council Member Emily Koski wrote on X.
Less than two hours later, from the scene of an unrelated fatal shooting at a homeless encampment, O’Hara acknowledged that his police force failed to protect Moturi and issued an apology.
A former tire store in Brooklyn Center has been repurposed into the state’s newest vehicle inspection station, where owners of salvage vehicles can get them examined to ensure they have been repaired with proper parts and are safe to drive.
The Department of Vehicle Services (DVS) signed a 10-year lease on the Big-O Tires building on Xerxes Avenue across from the former Brookdale Shopping Center. After spending several months retrofitting the shop, officials held a ribbon-cutting on Friday to mark its official opening.
Motorists who have bought salvage vehicles — those involved in crashes, damaged by weather or for any other reason declared a total loss by insurance companies — and had them repaired can bring them for a checkup at the new station. Under Minnesota law, motorists driving salvage vehicles must have them inspected to ensure their wheels are safe to drive and to renew their license tabs.
That has not been an easy task as the demand for salvage vehicles has ballooned in recent years, said Bob Jacobson, the commissioner of the Department of Public Safety. After the COVID-19 pandemic hit, salvage vehicles became popular since new and used car prices shot way up, and people found it cheaper to buy cars that needed major repairs, Jacobson said.
The DVS had only one metro area inspection station, on Starkey Street in St. Paul. And with just two bays for vehicles, availability was limited. By moving to Brooklyn Center and closing the St. Paul location, the DVS will have five bays, and each will be able to handle 18 vehicles a day. That is 90 vehicles on every weekday.
So far this year, the DVS has inspected more than 23,060 salvage vehicles across the state, which represents a 32% increase compared to the same 10-month period last year. In the past two weeks, inspectors in the Twin Cities have looked at 588 vehicles, DVS data shows.
Those numbers reflect the growing number of salvage vehicles on state roads and the need for more inspectors and longer hours at locations to verify vehicles were repaired using legal parts, said Greg Loper, director of the DVS Inspection Program.
Besides Brooklyn Center, which will be open 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on weekdays, the DVS operates eight other inspection sites across Minnesota. But most are overbooked and understaffed. That is changing.
Two men are dead and one woman was injured in a shooting at a homeless encampment in south Minneapolis on Sunday afternoon, police said. It was the second shooting at a Minneapolis encampment this weekend.
At about 2:20 p.m. Sunday, police responded to a reported shooting in the 4400 block of Snelling Avenue near the railroad tracks at the small encampment between Snelling and Hiawatha avenues. At the scene, officers found two men with fatal gunshot wounds, said Sgt. Garrett Parten Minneapolis Police spokesman. Responders rendered aid, but both men died at the scene.
A woman was found at the scene with life-threatening injuries and was taken to a local hospital where she was being treated Sunday night, he said. Police have yet to say whether the three were living at the encampment.
Officers detained three people, who Parten said have since been released after police found they were not believed to be involved in the shooting. No suspects had been identified as of 6:30 p.m. Sunday.
The shooting is the second at a southside homeless encampment this weekend. One man died and two were critically injured early Saturday at an encampment shooting near E. 21st Street and 15th Avenue S. On Sunday, the man was identified as Deven Leonard Caston, 31, according to the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office.
“We don’t know if there’s a connection between this homeless encampment shooting and the one that occurred yesterday,” Parten said on Sunday. “That is a consideration of the investigation. We can’t rule it out.”
Ward 12 Council Member Aurin Chowdhury, who represents the area and lives nearby, was at the site of the shooting Sunday afternoon. She said officials need information about what happened to better understand how to address situations like this long-term.
“This is an absolute tragedy, and this type of violence should never occur within our city,” she said. “It really makes me think about how we need to look at this more systemically and not just take a whack-a-mole approach and expect the problem to go away.
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