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Tutu-wearing school officer uses humor to connect with students
WILLMAR, Minn. — The uniformed police officer at the high school entrance stands 6-foot-4 and weighs 265 pounds.
His hair is cut close to his scalp.
His badge glistens in the morning sun.
James Venenga strikes an imposing figure.
Imposing to everyone but his students.
“We call him Officer Kupcake,” ninth-grader Emma Fuentes says.
Students deliver the soft and sweet moniker without a hint of derision.
“You’ve got to embrace it,” the 48-year-old officer said. “I’m not going to lie, most of them don’t know my real name.”
What they do know is his penchant for oversized glasses, feather boas, and ballet tutus worn just below his gun and taser.
“Am I different?” Venenga — adorned in a rainbow mohawk — asks student Yasmi Dillard-Ramirez.
She nods and smiles knowingly.
“It’s comfortable,” Dillard-Ramirez says of her relationship with her school’s resource officer. “He’s just so crazy and out there. He’s an easy person to open up to.”
Willmar’s Alternative Learning Center, where Venenga works, is the educational home, primarily, for students who’ve struggled in a traditional high school setting.
The school’s principal, Andy Gregory, says Venenga’s non-traditional approach to policing is a perfect fit. “His ability to grow relationships with kids that struggle, it’s phenomenal, it’s amazing.”
Venenga says his first duty is keeping students and school staff safe, but the fart gun on his office shelf suggests he’s armed for any eventuality.
“There’s times to be serious,” Venenga says. “The other 95 percent, I can be me.”
Being him means Venenga has cited students for traffic and other offenses who’ve then stopped at this office a week later looking for advice as they navigate the legal system.
“You don’t have to be one of the people that’s in your face. That’s not how I roll. I’m the opposite of that,” Venenga says.
On a recent Monday morning, Venenga spread ice melt on a slippery sidewalk before helping a student cross a wide puddle in her path on the way to school.
One day, Venenga might make and serve students a pancake breakfast as a reward for showing up to school on time.
On another, he’ll allow students to style his hair in exchange for good school performance.
“He’s built different,” student Jacob Reyes says after catching a glimpse of Venenga in his tutu and a blonde wig.
“Cops have, like, a reputation,” Reyes says. “But then there’s Kupcake.”
Paraprofessional Sharon Rambow simply mentioned to Venenga her desire to cover a doorless closet in her classroom. “And he said, ‘I’ll sew you a curtain.’”
Rambow snapped a photo of the officer sitting at a table with fabric, a needle and thread in her room.
“There’s kids that come in here with broken backpacks and he will sew them up. He’ll sew buttons on for kids,” Rambo says.
But can a soft-centered officer known as Kupcake still be an effective disciplinarian?
“I’ve seen very few kids test the boundaries,” Principal Gregory says, “and the ones that do test the boundaries, he’s able to let them know where the line is without letting them know where the line is authoritatively, which is a skill in itself.”
At lunchtime, Venenga can be found playing ping pong with students in the cafeteria. At one point, he slips into the hall with a student whose behavior has crossed a line.
“Hey!” Venenga says to the student firmly enough to get his attention. “You can’t be talking that way.”
Gregory says Venenga’s silly side doesn’t impede his ability to rein in bad behavior. In fact, he says, it enhances it.
“He’s a master at de-escalating situations. I don’t even know if I could use intimidation in the same sentence with him,” Gregory says.
Venenga spends each Friday at Willmar’s Kennedy Elementary School, the source of a series of drawings he’s hung on his office wall.
In bright colors, a third grader has drawn pictures of the policeman she’s labeled “Officer Cupcake” dressed in various costumes, including his signature tutu.
“When you look at that, does that say, ‘I’m scared of the police?’” Venenge asks.
“No,” he says, answering his own question. “So, am I doing my job? Yes. That’s the whole goal.”
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Synchronize your watches! The award-winning best new musical sets its destination to the Orpheum.
MINNEAPOLIS — You don’t need to build a flux capacitator to travel back in time and relive an ’80s phenomenon.
“Back to the Future the Musical,” which won the 2022 Olivier Award for Best New Musical, is coming to the historic Orpheum Theatre in downtown Minneapolis at the beginning of fall.
The London’s West End and Broadway show is based on the 1985 blockbuster film that spawned two sequels: “Back to the Future Part II” in 1989 and “Back to the Future Part III” in 1990. All three films combined grossed nearly a billion dollars.
The award-winning musical stars Caden Brauch as Marty McFly, Don Stephenson as Doc Brown and Ethan Rogers as Biff Tannen.
“Back to the Future the Musical” officially premiered at the Manchester Opera House on March 11, 2020. It then had a huge run at London’s West End beginning in 2021 and hit Broadway in August of 2023.
The musical is directed by Tony Award-winner John Rando with original music by multi-Grammy-winners Alan Silvestri (“Avengers: Endgame”) and Glen Ballard (Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror”), alongside songs from the movie including “The Power of Love,” “Johnny B. Goode” and “Back in Time.”
“Back to the Future the Musical” will play at the Orpheum from Tuesday, Sept. 10 to Sunday, Sept. 22.
Tickets, which start at $50, will go on sale at HennepinTheatreTrust.org on Friday, June 14, 2024, at 10 a.m.
The production contains flashing lights, strobe effects, pyrotechnics and is recommended for ages 6 and up.
Its run time is 2 hours and 35 minutes and includes one intermission.
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Marina Dougall, 36, was last seen in Minneapolis in September of last year but wasn’t reported missing until May 2024.
ANOKA COUNTY, Minn. — The Anoka County Sheriff’s Office is asking the public to help find a missing Anoka County woman who they believe is without critical medication.
Marina Dougall, 36, was last seen in Minneapolis in September of last year but wasn’t reported missing until May 2024. Police said her family hasn’t heard from her since she was last seen.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension released a statement Wednesday, saying Dougall was known to frequent the Franklin Avenue North area of Minneapolis as well as places throughout Anoka County and across the Twin Cities metro. Investigators said she may have been in the area of Burnett County, Wisconsin last September, before being dropped off at the Norwoood Inn in Roseville.
MISSING: Investigators believe Marina Dougall may have been in the in the Burnett County, Wisconsin, area Sept. 20-22, 2023, and then dropped off at the Norwood Inn in Roseville. Anyone with information on Marina Dougall’s whereabouts is urged to call 911. pic.twitter.com/HhfAeFGiJZ
— Minnesota BCA (@MnDPS_BCA) September 11, 2024
The BCA said Dougall has a medical condition that requires medication, and that she also has a history of mental health and substance abuse issues.
Dougall is described as 5’9 and 140 pounds, with brown hair and green eyes. She also has a chipped front tooth, flower tattoos on her right hand and left shoulder, a snowflake tattoo on her right abdomen and a large tattoo on her back.
The BCA added Dougall was born in Russia and speaks with a slight accent.
If you’ve seen Dougall or know any information about her whereabouts, you’re urged to call 911 or contact the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office at 763-324-5209.
A judge handed 25-year-old Damarean Bible a 367-month sentence – 30 and 1/2 years – for killing 37-year-old Savannah Williams in November of 2023.
MINNEAPOLIS — A Minneapolis man will serve more than 20 years in prison after being convicted of second-degree intentional murder in the death of a transgender woman in November of 2023.
A Hennepin County district judge sentenced Damarean Kaylon Bible to 367 months – or 30 and 1/2 years – for fatally shooting Savannah Ryan Williams, a woman who was well-known in the Twin Cities trans community. He will serve two-thirds of that sentence behind bars.
“This senseless act of violence against a Native and Cuban transgender woman has left a family without a daughter, a partner without their person, and a community without the vibrant light that Savannah uniquely brought to every room she was in,” said Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty following the sentencing. “Savannah deserved safety.”
Moriarty said investigators in her office conducted a thorough review to determine whether the killing was motivated by bias, but concluded they could not prove bias beyond a reasonable doubt. The county attorney did say Williams’ murder is part of a pattern of escalating attacks against trans women, particularly those who are of color. She said since 2013, 286 trans women have been killed, with 85% of those victims being Bipoc women.
Two state legislators who are members of the Queer Caucus vowed to continue work at the State Capitol to protect Minnesota’s transgender community and increase penalties against those who harm them.
“Savannah Ryan Williams was a beloved member of the trans and Two Spirit community, and she should be alive today,” said Minnesota Rep. Leigh Finke (DFL-66A). “The data is clear that trans people, especially trans people of color, suffer violence at rates far greater than our cisgender neighbors. The Queer Caucus will continue do everything in our power at the Capitol to solve this crisis, and I thank the County Attorney’s Office for sharing this commitment.”
Minneapolis police were dispatched to the 3000 block of 4th Ave. S. around 9 a.m. Nov. 29, 2023 on reports of someone not breathing. Witnesses told officers they heard a gunshot just before 6 a.m.
Investigators used surveillance video to track the shooting suspect to an apartment building where they arrested Bible.
A criminal complaint says Bible admitted to shooting Williams in the head. He told police she approached him for a sexual encounter but he began to feel “suspicious.” After the act, he shot and killed her, according to court documents. Bible reportedly confessed after police found surveillance video of him at the scene near the Lake Street light rail station.
The complaint said while in jail, Bible told his dad he “just murdered someone.” It reads that he felt sorry for killing the victim and knew he wasn’t God, but he “had to do it.”
He was convicted of second-degree intentional murder on Aug. 27, 2024.
Following her death, friends remembered Williams as a big personality who was “full of life.”
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