Star Tribune
Search continues for Peter Martin, missing from Fond du Lac reservation since March 8
DULUTH — Peter Michael Martin borrowed $40 from a friend, promising to pay her back within the next eight hours and offering an Apple iPhone as collateral — an exchange that is among the final reported sightings of the man who was officially reported missing March 11.
Martin, 31, responded to a Facebook message from the friend asking about his status hours later. He reportedly told her he was waiting for a ride to town to cash a check. She responded immediately, according to details in a search warrant filed in St. Louis County, but he never wrote back.
Martin was last seen March 8 at his home in the Mahnomen neighborhood of the Fond du Lac Reservation. He is Native American, 5-foot, 10-inches tall, 185 pounds and has dark brown eyes. He has a scar on his forehead and tattoos on his arms and chest, according to the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. There have been daily searches, weather permitting, in the weeks since he was reported missing.
Search headquarters is the Sawyer Community Center — though a spokesperson for the tribe asked that media stay away.
Jessica Gidagaakoons Smith, an advocate for the family, has raised just more than $10,000 dollars on GoFundMe — a reward fund for information leading directly to Martin. She was also involved with the earliest efforts to find Martin.
“I immediately just started getting things in order, getting posters made and reaching out to people. And then I put a call out for the community on social media,” Smith said on the GoFundMe site.
Smith said she was involved with search efforts, which included dogs, early Friday but did not find any leads.
According to search warrants, an ex-girlfriend who shares a young child with Martin stopped by his home on Rustic Lane for a custody exchange and found the door open. She called the Fond Du Lac Police Department to conduct a welfare check. They found damage in every room. A television had been smashed; holes in the walls. Martin’s drivers license and tribal identification had been left behind.
The woman reported him missing two days later. Her last interaction, she told authorities, was a text exchange just before noon on March 8.
Days later tribal police officers, acting on a tip, found a black sweatshirt with an iPhone in the pocket and a black T-shirt on Giiniw Road In nearby woods, hanging from a tree, they found a black jacket with a white Samsung Galaxy 6 cell phone in the pocket.
Both phones are believed to belong to Martin.
Officers have filed search warrants for his residence, phones and various online accounts belonging to Martin — including his email.
The Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, which is the lead agency on the search, activated a full Emergency Operations Center process earlier this week, requiring resources from all divisions across the tribal nation to support search and rescue efforts, according to a post on the band’s website. They are focusing on the Sawyer area and places important to Martin.
The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension confirmed Friday that it has been assisting the tribal police since last week.
The University of Minnesota has postponed a scheduled Tuesday night lecture from infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci after pro-Palestinian protests that included some protesters barricading Morrill Hall the day before.
On Monday night, several hundred pro-Palestinian protesters gathered at the building, which houses the Minneapolis campus’ administrative offices, as Students for a Democratic Society used tied-up patio furniture to form giant barricades blocking the building’s large front windows and its entrances. The protesters demanded the U divest from companies with ties to Israel. At least 11 of the protesters were arrested.
The university decided to postpone Fauci’s lecture set for Tuesday night because of “unexpected and complicated incidents” over the past day, university spokesman Jake Rickersaid in an email.
“Given the importance of this lecture and the unexpected and complicated incidents that occurred on campus in the past 24 hours, University officials determined it best to reschedule to ensure a great experience for attendees and our University community,” Ricker said.
All tickets for the lecture will be voided and information about the rescheduled date will be posted later, the university said in an online post about the postponement. Pre-paid parking will be automatically refunded, the university added.
Additional pro-Palestinian protests took place Tuesday afternoon at the university in front of Coffman Memorial Union. The protests prompted university officials to temporarily close down at least a dozen buildings in a Tuesday alert. Those included: Coffman Union, Weisman Museum, Hasselmo Hall, Ford Hall, Vincent Murphy Hall, Tate Lab, Morrill Hall, Northrop Auditorium, Johnston Hall, Walter Library, Smith Hall, and Kolthoff Hall. All other East Bank campus buildings were switched to keycard access only, according to the alert.
An anti-Fauci rally had also been planned by conservative group Action 4 Liberty to coincide with the lecture at the university, but that was moved after the lecture was canceled.
Star Tribune
Aunt IDs 3-year-old who was fatally shot in Minneapolis home, speaks about what happened
A close relative on Tuesday identified the 3-year-old boy who was fatally shot this week in his family’s northeast Minneapolis apartment a day earlier.
Woods said police have told the family that Jajuan got ahold of the gun and it went off.
“Someone left a loaded gun [in the home,” said Woods, who has started an online fundraiser for her sister, Charlotte Williams. “He got ahold of it thinking it was a toy.”
Woods said her nephew, who went by Junior, “loved trucks and dinosaurs. He was just so silly and goofy. He was a momma’s boy.”
Jajuan suffered a gunshot wound to the top of the head, a source with knowledge of the incident told the Star Tribune. Paramedics rushed the toddler to HCMC, where he died a short time later.
Woods said she did not know who owned the gun.
Police spokesman Trevor Folke said Tuesday evening there have been no arrests and had no update to share in the “active and ongoing investigation.”
Bergman is championing efforts to boost literacy and invest in early childhood programming, and getting there, she said, requires financial sustainability, and that may mean closings and mergers. She attended last week’s finance committee meeting — as she’s done on a regular basis — and described the mention of “opportunity” as another rosy way of avoiding hard truths.
The district is spread too thin, she said. Some schools could take more students. Yet in others, class sizes are huge and caseloads so large that educators can’t build relationships with students and families, she said.
“I just fundamentally believe, and it’s been one of the objectives of my campaign, to be someone out in the community talking about this moment, listening to reactions, and listening for the places where families could get on board with the possibility of their beloved school having to close,” she said.
A way to get there, Bergman said, is by consolidating buildings, and in turn, expanding programming — perhaps not far from the school left behind.
Callahan argues that the mere mention of closings is causing families to leave the district: “This is not something that should be talked about so flippantly,” she said.
She said she would entertain the idea only if there also are plans to stabilize and recruit students, plus answers to three questions: How much money is being saved by closing a building? How many students will be retained if the school closes? And how many new students have to enroll to keep it open?
