Star Tribune
Red Lake mother charged with torture, abuse and neglect of son subject of recent Minnesota Amber Alert
A Red Lake mother is charged with child torture, abuse and neglect in connection to a recent statewide Amber Alert issued for abducting her 3-year-old son.
Jennifer Stately, 35, is in custody and faces multiple felony charges including third-degree assault. Charges say her toddler was covered in open sores and hadn’t been bathed in days when Todd County sheriffs deputies pulled Stately over an hour after the Amber Alert was issued Friday night.
“It would be a very slow process for his healing,” hospital staff said of Stately’s son, according to charges filed Monday in Todd County. Staff also concluded that the wounds were not a skin condition and could be from a burn caused by heat or chemicals.
Officials with the Minnesota BCA are leading the investigation and declining to comment further.
A double-fatal house fire was also reported Friday in Red Lake. Little to no details have been released except for the two fatalities and that there’s no ongoing threat to the public.
The Minneapolis FBI bureau is leading the investigation and also declining to provide further information on the time and location of the fire. Officials have yet to identify the deceased.
Records show that Stately is the mother of three young children: the toddler and two boys, ages 5 and 6.
Stately’s home on Circle Pines Road is in Red Lake’s Little Rock District, according to Red Lake Nation legal counsel Joe Plumer. That district is in the area of the house fire.
Red Lake fire and police departments are deferring all questions to the BCA and FBI.
The Todd County Attorney’s Office also declined to comment beyond the criminal charges and wouldn’t say if further charges were pending against Stately.
According to the charges, deputies alerted law enforcement that the vehicle subject to the Amber Alert was located on Hwy. 71 around 9:24 p.m. Stately was in the vehicle and the toddler was secured in a child seat in the backseat. Deputies immediately observed scabs covering 95% of the toddler’s face and entire body.
“[He] had a very strong smell of body odor, as if he had not been washed or changed in a few days. His cheeks were red and the sores appeared to be bleeding. His blue t-shirt was filthy with what appeared to be skin cells and crumb-like material. The car seat also appeared dirty and full of the same type of materials. The boy had no winter coat, and he was wearing moccasins that were multiple sizes too big with no socks. His feet were full of scabs that appeared to be a mix of old and new wounds. [He] did not seem to want to stand on his feet due to pain. When he walked, it was in an irregular manner,” charges state.
A full-body examination at Long Prairie Hospital revealed open sores and lesions; his legs, face and feet were the worst. He was scratching vigorously at his feet and eventually started crying that he was itchy. He was given medication to help and also prescribed steroids. Staff said he would need Vaseline at all times on his body to recover.
The toddler was anemic, low on potassium and thirsty. He couldn’t eat a cheese stick because his teeth were rotten. He ate two cups of pudding and could only take small bites of ice cream because of the sensitivity in his mouth, which he said hurt.
Stately was arrested upon suspicion of child neglect and endangerment, malicious punishment, torture, and assault.
The investigation is ongoing.
Star Tribune
Trump denigrates Detroit while appealing for votes in a suburb of Michigan’s largest city
NOVI, Mich. — Donald Trump further denigrated Detroit while appealing for votes Saturday in a suburb of the largest city in swing state Michigan.
”I think Detroit and some of our areas makes us a developing nation,” the former president told supporters in Novi. He said people want him to say Detroit is ”great,” but he thinks it ”needs help.”
The Republican nominee for the White House had told an economic group in Detroit earlier this month that the ”whole country will end up being like Detroit” if Democrat Kamala Harris wins the presidency. That comment drew harsh criticism from Democrats who praised the city for its recent drop in crime and growing population.
Trump’s stop in Novi, after an event Friday night in Traverse City, is a sign of Michigan’s importance in the tight race. Harris is scheduled for a rally in Kalamazoo later Saturday with former first lady Michelle Obama on the first day that early in-person voting becomes available across Michigan. More than 1.4 million ballots have already been submitted, representing 20% of registered voters. Trump won the state in 2016, but Democrat Joe Biden carried it four years later.
Michigan is home to major car companies and the nation’s largest concentration of members of the United Auto Workers. It also has a significant Arab American population, and many have been frustrated by the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s offensive in Gaza after the attack by Hamas against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
During his rally, Trump spotlighted local Muslim and Arab American leaders who joined him on stage. These voters ”could turn the election one way or the other,” Trump said, adding that he was banking on ”overwhelming support” from those voters in Michigan.
“When President Trump was president, it was peace,” said one of those leaders, Mayor Bill Bazzi of Dearborn Heights. ”We didn’t have any issues. There was no wars.”
While Trump is trying to capitalize on the community’s frustration with the Democratic administration, he has a history of policies hostile to this group, including a travel ban targeting Muslim countries while in office and a pledge to expand it to include refugees from Gaza if he wins on Nov. 5.
Star Tribune
‘Take our lives seriously,’ Michelle Obama pleads as she rallies for Kamala Harris in Michigan
”We are looking at a health care crisis in America that is affecting people of every background and gender,” Harris told reporters before visiting the doctor’s office.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden went to a union hall in Pittsburgh to promote Harris’ support for organized labor, telling the audience to ”follow your gut” and ”do what’s right.”
Harris appeared with Beyoncé on Friday in Houston, and she campaigned with former President Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen on Thursday in Atlanta.
It’s a level of celebrity clout that surpasses anything that Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, has been able to marshal this year. But there’s no guarantee that will help Harris in the close race for the White House. In 2016, Hillary Clinton lost to Trump despite firing up her crowds with musical performances and Democratic allies.
Trump brushed off Harris’ attempt to harness star power for her campaign.
”Kamala is at a dance party with Beyoncé,” the former president said Friday in Traverse City, Michigan. Trump, the Republican nominee for president, is scheduled to hold a rally in Novi, a suburb of Detroit, on Saturday before a later event in State College, Pennsylvania.
Tired of hearing about north Minneapolis kids having to go trick-or-treating in the suburbs, business owner KB Brown started throwing a costume bash at the Capri Theater with the goal of bringing together families and the organizations that care for them.
Now in its fourth year, that Halloween party has become a stone soup of community organizations cooking out, roller skating and giving away tote bags of candy to tiny superheroes and princesses.
Elected officials, including state Rep. Esther Agbaje, DFL-Minneapolis, and Hennepin County Commissioner Jeff Lunde, dropped in on the festivities Saturday to get out the vote in the final stretch of door-knocking season. KMOJ’s Q Bear DJed the party.
KB Brown and his grandson Zakari, 3. Brown founded Project Refocus, a nonprofit dealing with youth mentorship, security along the West Broadway business corridor and opioid response in the surrounding neighborhoods. (Susan Du/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Farji Shaheer of Innovative SOULutions provided a bounce house and inflatable basketball hoops. A violence intervention professional who offers community training on treating traumatic bleeding, Shaheer recently purchased land in Bemidji to redevelop into a retreat center for gun violence survivors.
He in turn invited Santella Williams and Dominque Howard to bring Pull and Pay, a former Metro Mobility bus retrofitted as a mobile arcade full of vintage games such as “NBA Jam” and “Big Buck Hunter.” The bus was a pandemic epiphany for Williams and fiancé Howard when they suddenly found themselves with four kids and nowhere to take them after COVID-19 shut everything down. Pull and Pay now shows up to community events throughout the North Side.
Pull and Pay owner Dominique Howard showed kids, squeezed elbow to elbow, how to play “Big Buck Hunter” inside his homebuilt mobile arcade. (Susan Du/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
“This is the first time I’ve been able to come through, but we figured we’d stop by check it out. It’s so perfect, and such a beautiful day,” said Shannon Tekle, a Northside Economic Opportunity Network board member attending with her two-year daughter, both of them dressed as monarch butterflies.
“North Side, we’re a big family,” said Brown, proudly toting his grandson Zakari (a 3-year-old Chucky with candy-smeared cheeks) on one arm. “Everybody here is from the community.”
Trump denigrates Detroit while appealing for votes in a suburb of Michigan’s largest city
‘Take our lives seriously,’ Michelle Obama pleads as she rallies for Kamala Harris in Michigan
North Minneapolis Halloween party for kids brings families together
Trump denigrates Detroit while appealing for votes in a suburb of Michigan’s largest city
‘Take our lives seriously,’ Michelle Obama pleads as she rallies for Kamala Harris in Michigan