Star Tribune
St. Paul mother pleads guilty for daughter’s fatal overdose
A St. Paul mother has pled guilty to manslaughter for her 7-year-old daughter’s fatal fentanyl overdose.
Shauntaija Travis, 28, pled guilty to 2nd degree manslaughter by culpable negligence on Friday. If accepted, Travis’ plea agreement would grant her a downward departure of three years while dismissing another manslaughter charge.
Travis was arrested for the overdose of her daughter Za’Maiya Travis, who was found dead last March — days before she was scheduled to move in with a relative who reported concerns about the child’s health to Ramsey County child protection officials.
A representative for family of Za’Maiya’s father disagreed with the plea, according to court documents, saying the time served would be too low. Representatives for the mother’s side don’t want her to serve prison time at all.
Judge Jacob Kraus will decide whether to accept the plea during Travis’ sentencing hearing on March 22.
Charging documents say officers and medics were sent to the Travis home at around 6:40 on March 31 for a death. They arrived on the 800 block of Sherburne Avenue to find Za’Maiya dead on an air mattress. She was cold to the touch.
Shauntaija and her boyfriend were reportedly emotional and distressed, telling authorities that the child was alive when in bed at around 2 a.m., but would not move when they tried to wake her for school hours later.
Officers searched the home and found straws with white powder residue, a baggie of suspected narcotics crumbs, and a blue M30 pill. Tests by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension confirmed that the straws contained cocaine, and the M30 pills contained fentanyl and a chemical which acts as a precursor to fentanyl.
An autopsy of the 7-year-old confirmed her blood contained both chemicals found in that M30 pill.
Shauntaija told officials that she abuses percocets, explaining that she was prescribed the drug for her seizures. When that prescription ended, she turned to street drugs to avoid withdrawal symptoms. Travis said there was a 75% chance her daughter got into her drugs but added that she avoided taking them around the child.
A search warrant of Benjamin E. Mays school where Za’Maiya attended unveiled a report of her suspected maltreatment was documented in the late fall of 2022. Za’Maiya said she was burned by her mother on her upper chest, but she didn’t add more details.
“Staff only documented the incident after [Za’Maiya Travis’] death,” charging documents read. “The school district refused to allow investigators to speak with staff about [her].”
It’s not the first time a Minnesota child has died of an overdose.
In December 2020, 3-year-old Amier McDaniel died from overdosing on fentanyl in a drug dealer’s West St. Paul Apartment. His mother, 35-year-old Queenetta J. McDaniel, of Maplewood, has pleaded guilty to second-degree manslaughter and is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 16.
In August 2022, 7-year-old Amonre Nelson Randolph, died from a fentanyl overdose he suffered in the family’s Minneapolis home in the 1800 block of N. 44th Avenue. His father, Nelson Randolph III, 45, was charged with second-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
In September 2022, a 14-month-old boy who overdosed after ingesting illicit drugs the couple left out in the family’s Little Canada apartment. Both of Ryder Compton’s parents, Joseph T.E. Compton, 29, and Andrea N. Intveld, 33, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and are serving prison sentences.
Star Tribune staff writer Paul Walsh contributed to this report.
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.”
