Star Tribune
Man found mentally incompetent to stand trial in brutal killing of Loring Park store clerk
A man with a history of mental illness accused of stabbing an acclaimed ballet dancer and friendly fixture of the Loring Park neighborhood was found mentally incompetent to stand trial.
Taylor Justin Schulz, 44, refused to appear Tuesday for a virtual Hennepin County District hearing. But judicial officer Danielle Mercurio proceeded without Schulz and ruled on his mental competency evaluation ordered in the aftermath of the gruesome killing last month.
Schulz was charged with second-degree murder and accused of beating and impaling Robert Skafte, 66, with a golf club behind the counter of the Oak Grove Grocery store around 1 p.m. Dec. 8.
Skafte was a beloved clerk at the store for nearly two decades and Schulz lived in an apartment across the street. But court records show Schulz had been evicted a week before the killing and he previously assaulted other apartment residents.
Mercurio’s ruling that found Schulz incompetent to participate in court proceedings was not publicly available as of publication time. The decision was based on the opinion of a psychological examiner who reviewed relevant records to prepare the report and evaluate Schulz.
“We have no reason no dispute the examiner’s opinion,” Schulz’ public defender Emmett Donnelly said in a brief statement while declining to comment further.
The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office did not respond to request for comment.
Schulz remains jailed in lieu of $1 million bail and his next court hearing is scheduled for July.
It’s unclear what the next steps are for Schulz, including whether he will be immediately hospitalized or remained jailed during civil commitment proceedings.
He was civilly committed for six months in 2021, when a doctor found that he was at “unacceptably high risk of further psychiatric deterioration unless strong support is given.”
Court records detail Schulz’s mental illness, including a diagnosis of schizophrenia and self-reported PTSD. Schulz had received treatment and services through the VA but wasn’t at the time of the commitment proceedings.
Charges, based on surveillance video footage of the attack, state that Schultz approached the store counter with merchandise and almost immediately walked around the counter and began kneeing and punching Skafte, who attempted to get away. Schulz dragged him back by his shirt and continued choking, punching and kicking him. He then retrieved a golf club from behind the counter.
He struck Skafte in the head and neck eight times before the head of the club broke off. Schulz then stabbed him with the broken shaft of the club before impaling him in the torso.
Police arrested Schulz in his barricaded apartment, 215 Oak Grove Street, after a six-hour standoff. A witness told police they saw a resident run into the apartment with blood on his face and clothing.
Schulz was already the subject of a person-in-crisis welfare check after he called 911 “wanting to speak to the FBI, refused to give further information,” according to emergency dispatch audio. He refused to come out of his 16th-floor apartment when police arrived and a negotiator was called to the scene.
A customer entered the grocery store less than two minutes after the attack and called 911.
Neighbor Tony Gutoski was among the first to render aid to Skafte, whom he found partly on his knees and still conscious after the attack.
He told Gutoski that someone who “was in there earlier acting crazy came back and attacked him,” and that he kept fighting him but didn’t know what happened.
Skafte trained and danced with Westside School of Ballet in Santa Monica, Calif., in the early 1980s, and Kansas City Ballet from 1984 to 1994. He then made Minneapolis home, dancing with the theater company Ballet of the Dolls, according to Westside’s website.
Over the years, he coordinated community gardens and farmer’s markets. He inspired neighbors with chalk art poetry outside the grocery store, where a memorial remains.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation closed part of a state highway Wednesday evening near Austin because of a “major hazardous materials release” in the area.
Hwy. 56 from Hayfield to Waltham, a stretch covering about five miles, was closed in both directions and drivers were directed to follow a detour to Blooming Prairie on U.S. Hwy. 218.
No information on the hazardous materials released was immediately available.
A federal judge dismissed a civil lawsuit against Minnesota state trooper Ryan Londregan in the shooting death of Ricky Cobb II during a 2023 traffic stop.
The decision is the latest development in a case that has drawn heated debate over excessive use of force by law enforcement. Criminal charges against Londregan were dismissed by Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty in June, saying the prosecution didn’t have the evidence to proceed with a case.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Nancy E. Brasel granted Londregan’s motion to dismiss the civil suit, arguing he acted reasonably when he opened fire as Cobb’s vehicle lurched forward with another state trooper partly inside.
Londregan’s attorney Chris Madelsaid Wednesday that it’s been a “long, grueling journey to justice. Ryan Londregan has finally arrived.”
On July 31, 2023, the two troopers pulled over Cobb, 33, on Interstate 94 in north Minneapolis for driving without taillights and later learned he was wanted for violating a felony domestic no-contact order. Cobb refused commands to exit the car.
With Seide partly inside the car while trying to unbuckle Cobb’s seatbelt, the car moved forward. Londregan then opened fire, hitting Cobb twice.
In her decision, Brasel said the troopers were mandated by state law to make an arrest given Cobb’s domestic no-contact order violation. She said it was objectively reasonable for Londregan to believe Seide was in immediate danger as the car moved forward on a busy highway, which would make his use of force reasonable.
GREEN BAY, Wis. — Donald Trump walked down the steps of the Boeing 757 that bears his name, walked across a rain-soaked tarmac and, after twice missing the handle, climbed into the passenger seat of a white garbage truck that also carried his name.
The former president, once a reality TV star known for his showmanship, wanted to draw attention to a remark made a day earlier by his successor, Democratic President Joe Biden, that suggested Trump’s supporters were garbage. Trump has used the remark as a cudgel against his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.
”How do you like my garbage truck?” Trump said, wearing an orange and yellow safety vest over his white dress shirt and red tie. ”This is in honor of Kamala and Joe Biden.”
Trump and other Republicans were facing pushback of their own for comments by a comedian at a weekend Trump rally who disparaged Puerto Rico as a ”floating island of garbage.” Trump then seized on a comment Biden made on a late Wednesday call that “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.”
The president tried to clarify the comment afterward, saying he had intended to say Trump’s demonization of Latinos was unconscionable. But it was too late.
On Thursday, after arriving in Green Bay, Wisconsin, for an evening rally, Trump climbed into the garbage truck, carrying on a brief discussion with reporters while looking out the window — similar to what he did earlier this month during a photo opportunity he staged at a Pennsylvania McDonalds.
He again tried to distance himself from comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, whose joke had set off the firestorm, but Trump did not denounce it. He also said he did not need to apologize to Puerto Ricans.
”I don’t know anything about the comedian,” Trump said. ”I don’t know who he is. I’ve never seen him. I heard he made a statement, but it was a statement that he made. He’s a comedian, what can I tell you. I know nothing about him.”
