Star Tribune
St. Paul students return to Harding High after fatal stabbing
Students trickled back into St. Paul’s Harding High School on Friday, returning to class as a district administrator held a briefing outside to note new security measures — and amid calls from educators for more action on school safety concerns.
Students had been out since sophomore Devin Scott, 15, was stabbed Feb. 10 by another student in a hallway. It was the middle of his first day at the East Side school.
Scott died a short time later at Regions Hospital. On Tuesday, Nosakhere K. Holmes, 16, was charged in Ramsey County District Court with second-degree unintentional murder.
District officials responded to last week’s stabbing by having police officers stationed outside five high schools and adding a third school support liaison to Harding’s security team. On Thursday, the district also announced new rules limiting how kids enter and move about a building that holds more than 1,700 students and staff members.
As students returned Friday, Assistant Superintendent Nancy Paez reiterated some of the new procedures at a news conference.
“This is going to be a good day at Harding,” she said.
The St. Paul Federation of Educators (SPFE) posted a letter on Facebook Thursday stating that board members and administrators had been made aware of issues involving the school’s safety climate by parents and educators, and that many of those calls and emails went unanswered.
“These events are the tragically avoidable and inevitable result of inadequate SPPS school climate policies and the refusal to listen to staff and community on how to address problems before they escalate,” the union said in its letter. It urged the school board to call an emergency meeting to hear from students, staff and community members.
When asked to comment Friday on the union’s contention that the tragedy could have been avoided and more done at Harding, Paez declined, saying, “Not at this time.”
Louis Francisco, an instructional coach who has been at Harding for 31 years, and is a graduate, too, said it had been a tough six days and there was no blueprint for how to cope with the aftermath of such violence.
“Teachers came together,” he said, “planning and grieving at the same time.”
The state’s second-largest district cut ties with school resource officers (SROs), in 2020 after George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police. They were replaced with 38 school support liaisons who are not armed but carry pepper spray and handcuffs. This week, Superintendent Joe Gothard said he is open to discuss adding SROs in new roles.
In its announcement Thursday night, the district said Harding’s new protocols are designed to “create a safe environment for all.” The rules state:
- Students who are late must enter through the main entrance, where they will receive a pass and will have five minutes to report to class.
- Increased hallway supervision will be in place, and students cannot access hallways during class time without a chaperone.
- Students will be escorted to the bathroom and bathrooms will be supervised.
Paez said the new measures would be enforced through at least the coming week.
“If we are obtaining the outcomes that we want for the changes, we will adjust as necessary or extend [them],” she said.
At the end of the day, a district spokeswoman said just over half of Harding’s students attended school Friday, and staff reported that those who were there were glad to see their friends and teachers again. The shortened school day focused more on support for students than academics, she said, and additional staff will be at Harding through next week.
Last week’s fatal encounter occurred in a hallway between classes. According to the juvenile petition filed Tuesday, Holmes had words with Scott, the two started fighting, and a third student punched Holmes, too, before staff members intervened. Then, Holmes advanced toward Scott, swinging a knife at least twice, the petition said.
In its letter, signed by more than 600 educators before it was posted, SPFE said board members had been silent on climate issues since they learned in November of a $1 million federal grant aimed at identifying the root causes of school violence — and, in turn, get students the help they need before they harm themselves or others.
The grant application cited an increase in the “prevalence and seriousness” of violent incidents in St. Paul schools in 2021-22 but gave no specifics.
At Harding on Friday, students met in grade-level assemblies and were to remain in their advisory class for most of the day. Members of the district’s crisis team also were on hand to support students. Harding will resume its normal schedule Tuesday.
The boom of yet another car crash was as jarring as it was familiar, reverberating in Albert Padilla’s townhouse one afternoon this year as he watched T.V.
“Instantly,” he recalled, “I knew something had happened.”
He rushed outside, running without shoes toward the heavily trafficked intersection of Biscayne Avenue and County Road 42 in southwestern Rosemount, where a car appeared to have spun out, he said. Inside, a woman lay pinned between airbags and the driver-side door.
Padilla and his wife live in a townhome development on a corner of this busy intersection. Residents and local officials agree something needs to be done to boost safety in the area. The node, not far from a gym, numerous single-family homes and a soon-to-be-constructed middle school, is a hotspot for collisions: 56 incidents have occurred since January 2019 where Biscayne Avenue crosses County Road 42, also known in that area as 150th St. W., according to Rosemount Police Department data.
That’s about 11 crashes a year over a roughly five-year span. And although none have been fatal, data shows 30% of all incidents resulted in injuries.
“As we continue to grow, it’s going to get more and more busy,” said Padilla, who works in Shakopee and navigates the corner on his morning and evening commutes. “More and more accidents are going to happen.”
A traffic light is slated for the area in coordination with a new middle school coming to the southeastern corner of the intersection. Officials will also realign part of Biscayne Avenue to reduce its skewed orientation, which impedes visibility. But that light installation and realignment won’t be complete until 2027, frustrating residents who say the node needs a makeover — now.
A man shot to death last weekend in Rochester has been identified.
Rochester Police said they responded about 1 a.m. Saturday to a home in the 4100 block of Manor Woods Drive NW. where they found a man shot to death. Family has since identified the victim as Demetrious Tankhamvang, 28, of Rochester.
One person was taken into custody Saturday, but there has been no further word on that individual’s role in the death or how the shooting came about.
“Demetrious’ parents, Christina, Sam, and Shane, are now grappling with the unimaginable pain of losing their firstborn son,” Samantha Prak wrote in an online fundraising campaign she started on behalf of the family. “Demetrious also leaves behind two beautiful daughters, who will forever carry his love in their hearts.”
Fateh is the son of Somali immigrants: His father immigrated to America in 1963, and ended up in Bozeman, Mont. His mother came in the 1970s. Fateh was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Virginia, spending summers in Minneapolis.
He ran unsuccessfully for a Virginia school board in 2015, and moved to Minnesota later that year.
Two years after an unsuccessful 2018 House race for District 62A, he announced plans to challenge powerful incumbent Sen. Jeff Hayden in the DFL primary in District 62 in south Minneapolis. He upset Hayden and nabbed the DFL endorsement, and he went on to handily defeat Hayden in the primary, making him a shoo-in for the general election in the DFL-dominated district.
Party endorsing conventions were held online that year due to the pandemic, and at the time, Hayden raised the specter of voter fraud, questioning whether some voters lived in the district and calling the process “flawed.”
Two years later, Fateh’s brother-in-law and campaign volunteer was convicted of lying to a grand jury about returning absentee ballots for voters during the 2020 primary election. The charges sprang out of a wider federal investigation into misuse of the “agent delivery” process, which allows people to deliver ballots to election offices for voters with health problems or disabilities.
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