Star Tribune
Democrats and Republicans line up to support making straw gun purchase a state felony
The killing of two police officers and a paramedic in Burnsville last month has made “straw purchases” of firearms a critical issue for Minnesota lawmakers of both parties.
Rep. Kaela Berg, DFL-Burnsville, said she wanted to craft a bill to address the specific circumstances of those shootings. The gunman was not legally allowed to own firearms, and federal prosecutors said in an indictment that his girlfriend purchased the weapons.
“The AR-15-style weapons that were used against the first responders should not have been in the possession of the assailant,” Berg said.
Berg’s bill would make it a state felony to buy guns for someone barred from owning them. Under state law, that offense is a gross misdemeanor, though it is already a felony at the federal level. The bill would also outlaw binary triggers, devices that effectively speed up the rate of semiautomatic gunfire. Rep. Jamie Becker-Finn, DFL-Roseville, noted that the gunman who killed a Minnesota-born police officer in Fargo last year also used a binary trigger.
Berg’s bill had a hearing in a House committee Thursday, and a Senate committee will hear the bill on Friday.
Republican legislators support stiffer state penalties for someone who makes a straw purchase, but some charge Democrats with delaying a vote on them. Sen. Julia Coleman, R-Waconia, said the Senate bill replicates one she sponsored last year that never made it to the Senate floor.
“This could have passed last year, and Democrats held it up,” Coleman said.
In a news conference and an impassioned floor speech on Thursday, Coleman said she “firmly believe[d]” the woman, Ashley Dyrdahl, alleged to have purchased guns for the Burnsville gunman would not have done so, had straw purchasing been a felony under state law. Dyrdahl faces federal charges, including straw buying.
Coleman said Sen. Heather Gustafson, DFL-Vadnais Heights, “told me she would be cloning my bill with the exact same language,” adding that Gustafson explained to her that “Republicans can’t be the ones to pass this bill.”
Gustafson responded in an emailed statement: “Ultimately, I valued the starting point of Senator Coleman’s bill,” Gustafson wrote, adding, “I believe there is more work to be done.” Gustafson said she planned to amend her bill Friday.
In the House, Republicans raised similar concerns, pointing to a bill by Rep. Peggy Scott, R-Andover, that would also have made straw purchases a felony. Berg said it was “likely a mistake on my part” not to reach out to Scott to work together on a bill, but she said she wanted to craft something quickly that dealt with the specific circumstances of the Burnsville shooting after the federal indictment against Dyrdahl was released.
There are key distinctions between the Republican and Democratic bills in the House, Becker-Finn said. Namely, the DFL bill makes it a felony to buy guns for someone the purchaser “reasonably should know” is not allowed to possess firearms, while the Republican bill makes it a felony if the purchaser “knows” someone is not allowed to own guns. The DFL bill also requires the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to produce a report on gun trafficking in Minnesota.
In Thursday’s House hearing, GOP legislators said they agree with tougher penalties for straw purchases.
“I am supportive of the straw buyer part of this,” said Rep. Jeff Witte, R-Lakeville, a retired Burnsville police officer.
But some House Republicans chafed at the idea of banning binary triggers in the same bill.
“The straw purchaser bill should have been done by itself,” said Rep. Matt Grossell, R-Clearbrook. “I don’t know why you had to muck it up.”
Rep. Paul Novotny, R-Elk River, suggested some wording changes to make sure the binary trigger ban did not inadvertently ban other kinds of semiautomatic firearms. Democrats said they were open to his suggestions.
Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan and her daughter were among the throngs Friday as President Joe Biden delivered the apology that many Indigenous Americans thought would never come.
“I think he really said the things that people have been waiting to hear for generations, acknowledged just the horror and trauma of literally having our children stolen from our communities,” said Flanagan, a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe. “It’s a powerful first step towards healing.”
Hundreds of boarding schools operated in the 19th and 20th centuries, separating Indigenous children from their families and forcing them to assimilate to European ways. Many children were abused, and at least 973 died, according to a report from the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Other Minnesotans reacted similarly to Flanagan, saying they welcomed the apology but that additional action is needed to help Indigenous people move forward.
Anton Treuer, a professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University, wrote in a newsletter that the apology was “a welcome first step on the journey to healing.”
“There is no way to truly right historical injustices for the children buried at Carlisle, Haskell, and other schools, but these words set a new tone for the country and will help heal the anguish so many Natives have carried for so long,” Treuer wrote. “It gives me hope that we can come together to reconcile and heal our troubled nation.”
Sen. Mary Kunesh, DFL-New Brighton, the first Indigenous woman to serve in the state Senate, called Biden’s apology encouraging.
“This recognition of past wrongdoings is an important step towards healing relationships between the United States and the sovereign nations affected by these past systems,” Kunesh said in a statement. “This dark period of American history must be remembered and taught.”
“I have done everything in my power to remedy this situation, and it continues to get more and more violent by the day,” Moturi wrote. “There have been numerous times when I’ve seen Sawchak outside and contacted law enforcement, and there was no response. I am not confident in the pursuit of Sawchak given that Sawchak attacked me, MPD officers had John detained, and despite an HRO and multiple warrants — they still let him go.”
On Friday, five City Council members sent a letter to Mayor Jacob Frey and Police Chief Brian O’Hara expressing their “utter horror at MPD’s failure to protect a Minneapolis resident from a clear, persistent and amply reported threat posed by his neighbor.”
Council Members Andrea Jenkins, Elliott Payne, Aisha Chughtai, Jason Chavez and Robin Wonsley went on to allege that police had failed to submit reports to the County Attorney’s Office despite threats being made with weapons, and at times while Sawchak screamed racial slurs. Sawchak is white and Moturi is Black.
The council members also contend in their letter that the MPD told the County Attorney’s Office that police did not intend to execute the warrant for “reasons of officer safety.”
At a Friday afternoon news conference at MPD’s Fifth Precinct, O’Hara said police had been working to arrest Sawchak since at least April, but “no Minneapolis police officers have had in-person contact with that suspect since the victim in this case has been calling us.” The chief pointed out that Sawchak is mentally ill, has guns and refuses to cooperate “in the dozens of times that police officers have responded to the residence.”
O’Hara put aside the option to carry out “a high-risk warrant based on these factors [and] the likelihood of an armed, violent confrontation where we may have to use deadly force with the suspect.” The preference, he said, was to arrest Sawchak outside his home, but “in this case, this suspect is a recluse and does not come out of the house.”
ROCHESTER – The Federal Transit Administration has green-lighted an $85 million grant supporting the development of the city’s planned Link Bus Rapid Transit system.
The FTA formally announced the grant on Friday during a ceremonial check presentation outside of the Mayo Civic Center, one of the seven stops planned for the bus line. The federal grant will cover about 60% of the project’s estimated $143.4 million price tag, with the remaining funds coming from Destination Medical Center, the largest public-private development project in state history.
Set to go live in 2026, the 2.8-mile Link system will connect downtown Rochester, including Mayo Clinic’s campuses, with a proposed “transit village” that will include parking, hundreds of housing units and a public plaza. The bus line will be the first of its kind outside the Twin Cities — with service running every five minutes during peak hours.
“That means you may not even need to look at a schedule,” said Veronica Vanterpool, deputy administrator for the FTA. “You can just show up at your transit stop and expect the next bus to come in a short time. That is a game changer and a life-transformational experience in transit for those people who are using it and relying on it.”
The planned Second Street corridor is already one of the busiest roads in Rochester, carrying more than 21,800 vehicles a day, and city planners have talked for years about ways to reduce traffic congestion in the city’s downtown. Local officials estimate that the transit line, which will rely on a fleet of all-electric buses, will handle 11,000 riders on its first day of operation and save eight city blocks of parking.
Speaking to a crowd of about 100 people gathered on Friday, Sen. Amy Klobuchar said the project shows Rochester is thinking strategically about how it handles growth.
“If you just plan the business expansion, and you don’t have the workforce, you don’t have the child care, the housing or the transit, it’s not going to work very well as a lot of communities across the nation have found,” Klobuchar said.
