Kare11
Advocates urge lawmakers to keep ban on prone restraints
Bill that clarifies use of force rules for school resource officers is moving quickly at the State Capitol.
ST PAUL, Minn. — The Minnesota Legislature is on a fast track to pass a new bill that sets up a model policy for how school resource officers operate in schools, and clarifies those SROs can use prone restraints when needed to bring a student under control.
Rep. Cedrick Frazier’s bill has been dubbed “the SRO fix bill” because it’s an effort to assuage concerns of law enforcement agencies that officers could potentially be held criminally liable for applying their normal reasonable force standards inside schools.
Education bills passed in 2023 added a ban on prone restraints for school employees and agents, spelling out that the ban applies to school resources officers — licensed police or sheriff’s deputies assigned to work inside school buildings under contracts with school districts.
Rep. Frazier’s bill would no longer classify SROs as school agents, effectively allowing them use prone holds if they deem it’s necessary.
That has drawn opposition from several groups, including the Solutions Not Suspensions Coalition.
“We believe safe schools are a condition for academic excellence. Safe schools are places where young people are protected from all manners of harm,” former Rep. Carlos Mariani Rosa, who now works with the Minnesota Education Equity Partnership, told reporters Tuesday.
He took part in a Capitol news conference that highlighted voices of students who are opposed to the change. They assert that BIPOC children are disproportionately affected by holds such as prone restraints.
“Kids don’t want to be restrained in school. Kids want to feel safe,” Simon, who identified himself as an autistic sixth grader, told reporters. “Using prone restraint never, ever helps a kid calm down. It just makes things worse.”
The Capitol Press also heard from a high school student named Sydney, who represents the Legal Rights Center Youth Network.
“If Minnesota prisons are not able to use prone restraints, what makes them appropriate for children in a school setting?” Sydney remarked. “As someone with an SRO in my own high school, this puts fear in my heart that my peers could fall victim to this lethal and unnecessary restraint.”
When that law became effective in August, dozens of law enforcement agencies pulled their SROs from schools and joined Republican lawmakers in calling for a special session to remedy the situation immediately. They claimed the idea had not been vetted properly with the committees that deal with policing issues.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison issued an opinion that the new law wouldn’t prevent officers from using those restraints to prevent imminent bodily harm.
Some departments returned their officers to schools, while others placed officers outside the buildings but made them available for rapid responses to 911 calls. That was based on a reading of the law that officers could use whatever force they deemed as reasonable as long as they were summoned to the school.
Frazier, a Crystal Democrat, has tried to strike a balance that assures police agencies they can return their SROs to schools while recognizing that children can be traumatized by being placed in prone restraints or witnessing it happen to other children.
Imran Ali, of the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association, testified in committee that Frazier’s legislation would provide law enforcement with the assurances they need to place officers back inside schools. The MPPOA took the lead last summer in sounding the alarm about the new laws, and how they would place officers in jeopardy of criminal prosecution.
Under Frazier’s bill, teachers and other school employees would still be barred from those holds, described in the bill as “any form of physical holding that restricts or impairs a pupil’s ability to breathe; restricts or impairs a pupil’s ability to communicate distress; places pressure or weight on a pupil’s head, throat, neck, chest, lungs, sternum, diaphragm, back, or abdomen; or results in straddling a pupil’s torso.”
The bill also establishes a model policy for SROs, in an effort to set statewide training standards and expectations for those officers. Frazier’s bill would leave it to the Peace Officer Standards and Training Board, or POST Board, to consult with stakeholders to create the final wording of that model policy.
Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid’s and its Minnesota Disability Law Center oppose removing the ban on prone restraints.
The nonprofit’s statement read, in part, “We have represented children who have been hurt in holds. Our position is that face-down, breath-impacting holds on children are dangerous. These holds are high-risk, even for the most experienced and most highly trained law enforcement officers.”
Legal Aid’s Jessica Webster testified in committee that the legislature should be able to add clarifying language that encapsulates the Attorney General’s opinion without removing the ban on prone restraints for officers.
Matt Shaver of Ed Allies agreed it shouldn’t be an either-or proposition.
“We don’t have to exempt SRO folks from the prone restraint ban to get the model policy. We could pass the model policy.”
Republicans thus far have voted against Frazier’s bill in committee, in part because of the POST Board’s involvement.
“Keep in mind, there are 17 members on the POST Board, every one of them is appointed by the governor,” Rep. Paul Novotny, an Elk River Republican who is a retired law enforcement officer, argued on the House Floor this week.
Republican Rep. Jeff Witte of Lakeville said there’s no need for a statewide model policy, asserting those details can be worked out in contract negotiations between law enforcement agencies and school districts. His attempt to substitute his version of an SRO fix failed in the Education Policy Committee Monday night.
It has remained a politically charged issue at the Capitol. GOP defenders of SROs in schools say school employees feel they’ve been maligned by all the talk of choke holds and prone restraints.
“I’ve heard over and over and over that if you want school resource officers in schools you must be for choking kids,” Rep. Ben Bakeberg, a Jordan Republican who is a teacher and principal, told colleagues during a floor debate.
“At a very basic level that’s insulting. There are a number of educators on both sides of the aisle that choose to go into education because we want to love and serve kids.”
Parks officials say the colder weather this winter is a welcomed change after the unusually warm winter last year.
SAINT LOUIS PARK, Minn. — Several cities across the Twin Cities metro are planning to open their outdoor ice rinks this weekend.
Saint Louis Park and Edina both opened their rinks Friday afternoon. Minneapolis and Eden Prairie will officially open their outdoor rinks on Saturday, according to their city websites. The Saint Paul city website says a few outdoor rinks in the city will be open this weekend and a few others could be open in the coming days.
Larry Umphrey is the Park Superintendent in Saint Louis Park. He says the weather this winter has been great for making ice.
“We’ve really had Mother Nature cooperate this year, unlike past years,” Umphrey says. “I’ve been dealing with ice and outdoor ice for 25 years, since the late 90s, and last year was the toughest I’ve ever seen.”
During the unusually warm winter last year most municipalities only managed to keep their ice rinks open for a handful of days. This warm streak has motivated a lot of cities to take a long hard look at the costs and benefits of operating outdoor ice rinks.
“I think there is some analysis going on within the cities of what they’re going to do moving forward. I know here in Saint Louis Park that we believe these rinks are an important amenity,” Umphrey says.
The city of Saint Louis Park maintains 18 ice rinks within the city limits. In Minneapolis, the parks board recently decided to close a few ice rinks, partially due to climate concerns.
The decision to close those ice rinks was also motivated by budgetary concerns.
Umphrey says building and maintaining outdoor ice rinks requires more work than most people realize.
“We actually started getting these ice rinks ready 30 days ago,” Umphrey says. “We’ve had to flood these rinks hundreds of times. Our trucks hold about 900 gallons and we come out and flood basically one full truck every time we come through. So, there are hundreds of thousands of gallons of water down on these rinks.”
Weighing the costs and benefits of outdoor ice rinks can be challenging because the benefits can’t be measured in dollars and cents.
Every ice skater on the rink is a person who is having fun, experiencing the outdoors, and likely creating memories, and you can’t put a price on that.
“We’re the State of Hockey. The state of ice skating. We want people to be able to skate,” Umphrey says.
While several cities across the metro are opening their rinks this weekend the big question is how long they will stay open. Next week we could see several days with temps above freezing.
Umphrey says the rinks should be fine if the warm temps only stick around for a few days, but if the temperatures stay above freezing for longer than three or four days the ice will melt quickly and crews will have to work hard to keep the rinks open.
Oly is 82 years old and has been working at the museum for half of his life.
SAINT PAUL, Minn — At the biology laboratory at the Science Museum of Minnesota, Richard “Oly” Oehlenschlager carefully examines a specimen.
At 82, Oehlenschlager is retiring from his position as the museum’s Collection Manager of Biology, leaving behind a legacy that spans thousands of specimens and countless stories.
“This room is a mecca for biological specimens,” Oehlenschlager said, gesturing to the cabinets filled with meticulously preserved plants and animals.
“This particular fish is called the solder,” he explained, holding up a specimen who is.
Oehlenschlager’s work goes beyond mere preservation.
Dr. Catherine Early, the Barbara Brown Chair of Ornithology and Curator of Biology, speaks highly of her retiring colleague.
“He always seems like he’s in a good mood,” she said, adding, “I believe his mom was very tolerant of him doing taxidermy at the kitchen table.”
Oehlenschlager even has been known to cook some of the specimens that come in, particularly grouse.
“They’re far greater than pheasants, as far as my culinary taste buds show,” he chuckled.
Despite his retirement, Oehlenschlager plans to return as a volunteer.
“There’s a lot yet to do,” he admits, acknowledging that the work of preserving the natural world is never truly finished.
“One lifetime isn’t enough to really evaluate things properly, because each year is different, each day is different,” he said.
His legacy at the Science Museum of Minnesota is not just in the specimens he’s preserved, but in the knowledge he’s shared and the passion he’s inspired in others.
“It’s been harder to get respect because I’m a younger woman,” said Dr. Early. “He was so welcoming from the start, and he knows Minnesota so well.”
But keeping with his character, and acknowledgement that documenting natural history is never done, he said he will be volunteering once a week.
Kare11
Pilot program inside Stillwater prison puts emphasis on healing all from the trauma caused by crime
The program involves having incarcerated individuals mentor others and respond to crises
STILLWATER, Minn. — Behind the locked doors of Minnesota Correctional Facility Stillwater, change is happening.
“When we started this thing, we said we was going to make doing the right thing the cool thing to do,” Tito Campbell said. “Because we made the wrong thing the cool thing to do for so long, right?”
Campbell is the restorative justice specialist with the Minnesota Department of Corrections. The restorative justice program works to help change incarcerated individuals’ mindset, embracing that crime is something that affects all parties involved – the victim, the one who committed the crime, and the community.
That mindset is one that they discuss with a group of 16 mentors, who work inside the prison as fellow members of the incarcerated population. Those mentors then use those teachings to help mentor others, helping them approach conflict or their own day-to-day lives differently.
“Prison doesn’t just have to be prison, you know, prison can be a place where you can actually reinvent yourself,” Campbell said.
Earlier this year, KARE11 spoke with members of the restorative justice program as part of another story about the changes the DOC was making to the mail system. We spoke again to three of them.
“Our job as being mentors is to be able to identify that, to be trauma-informed, to be able to convey what a person may have went through,” Ramone Vercher said.
“We have to come to the table together, that’s how we change culture,” Rich Scheibe said.
Inmates say the program works since they can relate to those who are needing help – they share life experiences, and can use that to help.
“Having some type of insight and level of understanding about those things equips, gives you a better set of tools to be able to actually help somebody,” Lennell Martin said.
All three men say their past is a part of their story, but it doesn’t define them – and they’re working on helping others change their perspective as well.
“I’m able to identify with that persona and be able to help them identify what they’ve been through with traumas,” Vercher said. “It’s helpful.”
Campbell said there’s another group of mentors that will be added soon. He said the goal is to eventually add every facility in the DOC system, with mentors at every location.
