Star Tribune
As Minnesota considers child protection reforms, should responsibility fall to state or counties?
Though Minnesota is one of just nine states in which counties control the delivery of child protection services, there is no evidence that a purely state-run system would improve outcomes for abused children, experts told state legislators Thursday.
“Could we shift to more of a state-operated system? You could, but there is a trade-off,” said Traci LaLiberte, executive director of the Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare at the University of Minnesota. “There [are] huge financial implications. It isn’t necessarily going to garner you better outcomes.”
Restructuring Minnesota’s child protection system was one of the main subjects of discussion at Thursday’s meeting of the Legislative Task Force on Child Protection, which met for the second time in two months to address widespread failures identified in a recent Star Tribune investigation.
The Star Tribune’s reporting revealed that hundreds of children are harmed each year when county officials return them to parents who have not addressed problems that prompted the removal of their children to foster care.
Since 2012, at least 86 children died from maltreatment after Minnesota’s child protection system failed to protect them from caregivers with a history of abuse or neglect. Another 11 children died from suicide after a child protection case was filed on their behalf, including a 6-year-old girl.
The investigation has prompted vows to reform the system, but some advocates have complained that state officials made similar promises following a 2014 investigation by the newspaper that led to nearly 100 proposed reforms. Many of the key proposals, however, were never implemented.
“It is time to stop talking about the problem and do something about it,” Ann Hill, state ombudsperson for African American Families, told the task force Thursday. “It shouldn’t be difficult to identify areas where we need targeted investment.”
DFL Gov. Tim Walz has said he will propose a spending boost this year to allow counties to add child protection workers, but one advocate for abused children warned against expanding a system “where no accountability exists.”
“When egregious harm happens, many of us are quick to blame the system,” said Ariana Guerra, policy and advocacy manager for a Foster Advocates, a Minnesota nonprofit. “We disagree. We believe these are not system failures but the system doing exactly what it is designed to do. The harm to families is not an unintended consequence — it is built into the foundation of the child protection system.”
Several speakers suggested that Minnesota would benefit by moving some child protective services to the state but leaving the bulk of them under county control.
Rep. Kim Hicks, DFL-Rochester, told the task force she wants to examine the idea of shifting the screening of maltreatment reports to the state — a key recommendation of a prior task force.
That issue has been a point of contention since 2014, when a Star Tribune investigation showed that Minnesota was failing to take action on an unusually high percentage of child abuse reports.
In 2021, the last year for which data is available, county workers screened out about two-thirds of the nearly 80,000 referrals they received for child protection. Only five states screened out more, federal records show.
LaLiberte agreed that it may make sense for the state to take over the screening of maltreatment calls, saying it would likely result in greater consistency and more accountability.
“When we look across Minnesota, we want to make sure that regardless of where kids and families live, they are being assessed equally,” LaLiberte said.
Sen. Bobby Joe Champion, DFL-Minneapolis, cautioned that a major shift in screening responsibilities could inadvertently harm people of color, noting that Black and Native American children are already disproportionally affected by child protection practices.
Champion said the speed at which the task force is moving “causes me a little trepidation.”
Hicks said she would meet with all groups affected by the proposal to reach consensus on how a centralized system should work. But she said legislators must act with a sense of urgency.
“We don’t want to take too long,” Hicks said. “There is already a lot of information that is already out there. … Doing nothing is a choice, but it is typically a bad one.”
Guerra said the current system is failing many children, noting that just 3% of children who wind up in foster care obtain college degrees while 41% fail to obtain stable housing when they become adults, resulting in danger of becoming homeless.
“We have to ask ourselves: Are we OK with this?” said Guerra, who said legislators should focus on funding antipoverty programs that would help keep more children out of foster care.
In Minnesota’s county-run system, more than 80 agencies provide child protective services, Legislative Auditor Judy Randall noted in a previous appearance before the committee.
Randall’s agency said Minnesota’s decentralized system suffers from “inconsistencies” in services provided to families and “fragmented oversight” of cases and law enforcement’s child protection actions.
LaLiberte said that there is little research comparing state- vs. county-run child protection systems, and she noted that county officials continue to have significant input in 35 state-run systems.
Star Tribune
Two more victims from encampment shootings identified as Mayor Frey says, ‘This is about fentanyl.’
The Hennepin County Medical Examiner has identified three murder victims from two separate shootings at homeless encampments this weekend in Minneapolis as three others were left with life-threatening injuries.
Christopher Martell Washington, 38, of Fridley, and Louis Mitchell Lemons, Jr., 32, of Brooklyn Center, were identified Monday afternoon as the two men who died from multiple gunshot wounds on Sunday afternoon in the 4400 block of Snelling Avenue. Deven Leonard Caston, 31, was identified as the victim at an encampment shooting near E. 21st Street and 15th Avenue S. that happened Saturday.
Minneapolis Police Spokesman Sgt. Garrett Parten, said it was unclear if there was a connection between the shootings but “we can’t rule it out.”
The city has dealt with several shootings in and around homeless encampments this year. Mayor Jacob Frey attended a news conference Sunday after the shooting on Snelling Avenue and said the city needs to continue to provide options for people seeking shelter. But, he said, encampments are not an alternative answer.
“Yet again we have more people that are dead,” he said. “We need to be honest and realistic about what is happening right now. We need to call a spade a spade. This is not about a lack of shelter. This is about fentanyl.”
Officers initially detained three people in the shooting of Washington and Lemons Jr., but were released after police found they were not believed to be involved in the shooting. No charges had been filed in either shooting as of Monday.
Ward 12 Council Member Aurin Chowdhury, who represents the area and lives nearby, was at the site of Sunday’s shooting. 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.”
Inside Paper Source, which has been in the mall since 2016, senior sales lead Carrie Helman-Menard said foot traffic has changed at the mall.
“It is quiet,” she said. “This street was a lot different even, you know, six years ago. The hobby stores down that way closed. Salut, closed. Anthropolgie, closed. J Crew, etc. There were a lot more people bustling, shopping.”
Grand, she said, can be that way again, but it “needs businesses. Needs people.”
A new development at Grand and Victoria could be just what’s needed, she said.
“People will come,” she said, pointing to her store’s customers continuing to walk through Paper Source’s door. “They get excited that something’s here. People are grateful. They’ll come in here and say, ‘Oh my god, I’m so glad you’re here.’ So that feels good. A lot of people want that hustle and bustle back.”
Simon Taghioff, president of the Summit Hill Association board, said Parritz made “an information only” presentation to the board earlier this month. Parritz, he said, shared “a lot of optimism in how it could transform that corner in a positive way.”
Star Tribune
Sentencing set for Monday morning for a Minnesota man who was drunk and speeding when he hit a woman’s SUV and killed her.
A man with a history of driving drunk received a four-year term Monday for being intoxicated and speeding when he hit a woman’s SUV on a southern Minnesota highway and killed her.
John R. Deleo, 54, of Lake Crystal, Minn., was sentenced in Brown County District Court after pleading guilty to criminal vehicular homicide in connection with the crash on Aug. 17, 2023, in New Ulm at Hwy. 68 and S. 15th Street that killed 82-year-old Sharon A. Portner, of New Ulm.
With credit for the two days he was in jail after his arrest, Deleo is expected to serve the first 2⅔ years years of his term in prison and the balance on supervised release.
A week ahead of sentencing, defense attorney James Kuettner asked the court to spare his client prison and put him on probation for up to five years.
Kuettner pointed out in his filing that Deleo stayed at the crash scene and attempted “to aid Portner, and he left [her] side only when directed to by law enforcement.”
The attorney also noted that Deleo has been sober since the crash, and therefore, at a particularly low risk for reoffending.
According to the criminal complaint:
Police arrived to find the two damaged vehicles near 15th and S. Broadway streets. Emergency responders took Portner to New Ulm Medical Center, where she died that day.
