Star Tribune
‘He was a king:’ Grieving Minneapolis mother decries violence following son’s Memorial Day slaying
A grieving mother bowed her head as she described the vibrant spirit of her only son, an eighth-grader whose dreams were cut short in a Memorial Day shooting on Minneapolis’ North Side.
“He was a great blessing in my life,” Frances Davis told reporters during a news conference Wednesday evening at Shiloh Temple International Ministries. “My son was left in an alley for the garbage. My son was not trash. I need y’all to know my son had a beautiful smile. He was a king. He loved education and he loved life.”
Relatives gathered at the church to denounce the city’s latest act of gun violence and remember 14-year-old Alan Jermaine Davis — a talented athlete who loved to run and play basketball. Family members are now grappling to understand why anyone would want to extinguish the promising future of such a young boy.
Police officers responded to a shots-fired call Monday around 5:30 p.m. in an alley in the 3700 block of Bryant Avenue N., where they found Alan suffering from gunshot wounds. He was taken to North Memorial Health in Robbinsdale, where he later died.
A neighbor later told the family that they saw Alan walking down the street with two males who shot him and ran away.
The tragedy comes just three months after Alan’s mother removed him from Olson Middle School where, she says, he endured months of bullying by peers. He began attending school online, but still communicated with many of his former classmates. On Monday, relatives say he was lured out of his home with a Snapchat message by teens purporting to be his friends.
There was a rumor circulating that Alan had snitched on another boy in the community and teenagers confronted him about it, according to text messages shared with reporters. He denied the allegation in those exchanges.
“He wasn’t talking on anyone,” his mother insisted. “There’s no reason I should be making funeral arrangements. He was supposed to bury me.”
Relatives recalled seeing a rap video circulating on social media in the aftermath of the murder where kids appear to be referencing Alan’s death, saying “one down, one to go.”
Police did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the alleged motive in this case or answer questions about the ongoing investigation. As of Wednesday evening, no arrests had been made. Anyone with information is asked to contact Crime Stoppers at 800-222-8477 or crimestoppersmn.org.
As they wiped tears, Alan’s family members decried the proliferation of guns among the city’s youth and lamented the lack of services to keep wayward teens out of trouble.
“No matter who we cry out to for help, we have no programs. We have nothing for our youth to go to,” said Erie Brown, Alan’s great aunt. “There’s no help.”
Frank Davis recalled the last conversations he had with his grandson, when Alan professed a desire to drive a cab one day like his “Pop Pops.” Frank Davis broke down as he described his wish that he could take Alan’s place.
“I’ve lived a long life. Alan lived a short life. If I could ask God to take me, because Alan never did nothing wrong,” he said, weeping. Frank Davis also asked that the community to consider donating to the family’s GoFundMe to help raise enough for a proper burial.
But more than anything, the family wants closure — and accountability. They pleaded with the shooters directly to turn themselves in.
“Come forward. Please,” begged Alan’s older sister, Alicia Davis. “I can’t live without knowing the truth.”
Star Tribune
Palestinian officials say an Israeli strike on a school-turned-shelter in northern Gaza killed 15
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — An Israeli strike on a school sheltering the displaced in northern Gaza on Thursday killed at least 15 people, including five children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
The Israeli military said the strike targeted dozens of Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants who had gathered at the Abu Hussein school in Jabaliya, an urban refugee camp in northern Gaza where Israel has been waging a major air and ground operation for more than a week.
Fares Abu Hamza, head of the ministry’s emergency unit in northern Gaza, confirmed the toll and said dozens of people were wounded. He said the nearby Kamal Adwan Hospital was struggling to treat the casualties.
“Many women and children are in critical condition,” he said.
The Israeli military said it targeted a command center run by both militant groups inside the school. It provided a list of around a dozen names of people it identified as militants who were present when the strike was called in. It was not immediately possible to verify the names.
Israel has repeatedly struck tent camps and schools sheltering displaced people in Gaza. The Israeli military says it carries out precise strikes on militants and tries to avoid harming civilians, but its strikes often kill women and children.
Hamas-led militants triggered the war when they stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 others. Some 100 captives are still inside Gaza, about a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s offensive has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. It does not differentiate between civilians and combatants but says women and children make up a little more than half of the fatalities.
Twin Amur tigers born at Como Zoo in August now have names — Marisa and Maks.
Two long-time volunteers who have worked with zookeepers to care for and teach the public about the zoo’s big cats came up with the names, the first to be born at the St. Paul zoo in more than 40 years.
Marisa, a name that the volunteers found to mean “spirited and tenacious,” call that a perfect reflection of her personality. The name also carries special significance for the Como Zoo community, as it honors a retired zookeeper of the same name who was instrumental in the care of large cats during her 43 years at the zoo, Como Zoo and Conservatory Director Michelle Furrer said.
The male cub has been named Maks, which is associated with meanings like “the greatest” or “strength and leadership.” The volunteers felt this was an apt description of the male cub’s confident demeanor and growing sense of leadership, Furrer said.
“Marisa and Maks aren’t just names; they’re a fun reminder of the passion and care that keep us committed to protecting wildlife every day,” Furrer said.
The newborns and their first-time mother, 7-year-old Bernadette, remain off view to allow for more bonding time, zoo officials said. The cubs’ father, 11-year-old Tsar, has been a Como resident since February 2019 and remains on view.
Fewer than 500 Amur tigers — also known as Siberian tigers — remain in the wild as they face critical threats from habitat loss, poaching and human-wildlife conflict, the zoo said.
Much of the wood waste in the metro area is sent to a processing site near Pig’s Eye Lake in St. Paul, where it is stored before being burned to produce energy at the St. Paul Cogeneration plant downtown.
Cogeneration provides power to about half of downtown and was originally built to manage elm-tree waste in response to Dutch elm disease. The plant burns approximately 240,000 tons of wood each year, according to Michael Auger, senior vice president of District Energy in St. Paul.
Jim Calkins, a certified landscape horticulturalist who has been involved in discussions about the problem, said he thinks using wood for energy is the most logical solution.
“The issue is, we don’t have enough facilities to be able to handle that, at least in the Twin Cities,” Calkins said. “So there has to be dollars to support transportation to get the wood to those places, or in some cases, to upgrade some of those facilities such that they are able to burn wood.”
Plans are in place to convert Koda Energy in Shakopee to burn ash wood, which could potentially handle around 40,000 tons of wood waste, but that would take around two years to establish, according to Klapperich.
In some areas of the state, cities have resorted to burning excess wood waste because they felt they had no other option. Open burning wood releases a lot of carbon into the air, Klapperich said.
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