Star Tribune
Duluth leaders look to make sleeping in homeless encampments a crime
DULUTH — City officials were called “authoritarian” and “ethically abhorrent” Monday night as the City Council heard from more than three dozen constituents on a proposal to make sleeping on city property a misdemeanor crime.
Mayor Roger Reinert and other city leaders announced 10 proposed ordinance changes last week addressing non-violent crimes they said drew the most complaints. Offenses include public graffiti and property damage, blocking sidewalks and streets without a permit, drinking alcohol in parks and soiling the city’s Skywalk.
The majority of nearly 200 emails sent to the Council and most of the packed chambers and overflow room appeared against the outdoor camping ordinance. It drew the bulk of speakers that spanned several hours.
Many experiencing homelessness, college students, religious leaders — including the bishop of the Diocese of Duluth — physicians and nonprofit directors called on the Council to reject the move to ban encampments.
“Places that enforce these kinds of ordinances are simply just shuffling people around,” earning “cheap political points,” said Dereck Williams, a Duluth man who said he chooses to be homeless and has traveled the country. “Most homeless people aren’t like me. They’re out there because of circumstances beyond their control.”
Several nonprofits and groups that work with the city’s homeless populations, including the Damiano Center, Safe Haven and the NAACP, said the city didn’t consult them before rolling out the proposed changes. Both in a letter to the city and Monday night, many called for more meetings, revisions and a tabled decision, asking that “life-sustaining” acts like sleeping not be criminalized. The Council will discuss and act on the measures July 29.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled late last month that fining or jailing people for breaking anti-camping ordinances when there is no shelter available does not violate the Constitution. The decision gives local governments the license to cite and possibly arrest people in homeless encampments or other public spaces. While the city expects to educate and warn before turning to enforcement, a misdemeanor can mean a $1,000 fine or 90 days in jail.
Rochester approved a ban on homeless camps in February after area police said that more legal consequences were needed as encampments grew around the city.
Since it went into effect last spring, Rochester police haven’t cited or arrested anyone but have issued several warnings.
Nearly 600 people used a seasonal overnight warming shelter in Duluth during the winter of 2022-23. In the summer, nonprofits run a new operation called Safe Bay, where services and resources are offered along with safe overnight parking for sleep. About 200 people used it last summer. Plans authorized by the city 2 years ago for sanctioned outdoor seasonal villages haven’t come to fruition because of difficulty securing land and staff, but efforts to build low-cost, small footprint homes with built-in resources are underway by Stepping on Up, a coalition of organizations that work with the homeless population.
The group is a couple of years into its 5-year plan for permanent housing, and needs more time to raise money, said Deb Holman, a longtime outreach worker for Chum, an emergency shelter.
“We are closer than ever,” she said, before saying the names of three people who died of overdoses in tents. “We need safe housing for drug users and medical support.”
City officials have said they don’t see the move as criminalizing, and argue that misdemeanors offer alternatives to a fine, such as diversionary and restitution-type programs in lieu of jail time and a record. Those programs, including treatment and other assessments, can help channel those experiencing homelessness to resources, said Duluth police Chief Mike Ceynowa.
The Sixth Judicial Court in Duluth recently began a voluntary specialty court that hears misdemeanor charges in an effort to stabilize those committing lower-level crimes.
“This is not something we are going to jail our way out of,” Ceynowa said at a meeting last week, noting there are a few large encampments where garbage, needles and fire have been issues.
Some supporters of the city’s efforts came from downtown business owners and employees, including Patty McGaffey, who works in real estate. Problem behavior needs to be addressed, she wrote in a letter to the Council, or businesses will leave.
“We have been forced to spend thousands of dollars replacing broken windows and building entrance doors, removing graffiti, cleaning up human feces in building doorways and in the skywalk system,” she said.
Duluth resident Eric Lindell said at the Monday meeting that it’s up to state and federal governments and not the city to solve the homeless crisis.
“There is a silent majority out there that want these ordinances,” he said.
Brad Ray, a behavioral health and addiction researcher who consults with a local harm reduction group, said in an interview that criminalizing outdoor sleeping will eventually tax an overburdened criminal justice system. And it runs counter to other city efforts, like its 2-year-old crisis response team. For those who are arrested, it will likely lead to overdoses, he said, exacerbating the very problem the city is trying to solve.
“There is really no good win from this,” Ray said, “and it’s just totally not addressing the problem.”
Staff writer Trey Mewes contributed to this report.
Star Tribune
Man charged in shooting, armed standoff with police at south Minneapolis apartment building
A 40-year-old man was charged Thursday with three felony assault counts for allegedly shooting up his south Minneapolis apartment building last weekend, prompting a standoff with police before an officer shot and disarmed him.
According to the criminal complaint, Nathan Mellstrom Matz fired numerous shots with an AK-47 rifle sometime before 4:30 a.m. Saturday at the apartment building, in the 4000 block of Minnehaha Avenue in the Longfellow community. Several 911 calls summoned the police, who evacuated residents before finding Matz in a stairwell holding the rifle.
An officer gave Matz a minute and 20 seconds to drop the gun before firing a single shot at him. The suspect was taken by ambulance to the hospital, where he was expected to survive his wound. No one else was injured in the episode.
One resident told police he heard gunfire, stepped out in the hall and ran back into his apartment when he saw the gunman down the hall, who fired and nearly hit him. Another resident said he heard gunshots through his floor and found bullet holes there. A homeowner across the street said her house was hit by bullets and that she believed it was targeted during the shooting.
Matz is charged with three counts of second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon, but prosecutors may seek an aggravated sentence because, among other things, the shooting occurred in a densely populated area.
During the hearing, the Mille Lacs Band backed away from its original route and aligned with the Upper Sioux Community, which proposed an even longer route but also stated that it preferred the pipeline never be reopened.
The Yankton Sioux Tribe and the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe also opposed the project.
And on Thursday, Nina Berglund, a member of the Northern Cheyenne and Oglala Lakota tribes brought a sample of pipestone for the commission to see as they deliberated in a downtown St. Paul hearing room. She shed tears as the monument superintendent described the significance of the area.
“To have it be able to represent itself in a room where everyone’s talking about it and no one knows what it looks like,” Berglund said of the pipestone.
Nina Berglund, a member of the Northern Cheyenne and Oglala Lakota tribes and a Minneapolis resident, holds a piece of pipestone from Pipestone National Monument and a bunch of sage on her lap during a Minnesota Public Utilities Commission meeting at the Metro Square building in St. Paul, Minn. on Thursday, Sep. 12, 2024. The commission discussed options surrounding a permit for Magellan Pipeline Company to build a pipeline near Pipestone National Monument. ] ALEX KORMANN • alex.kormann@startribune.com (Alex Kormann/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Brusven said granting a route permit would make it easier for Magellan to survey the route because they would be less reliant on landowners granting them access to look for items of cultural significance.
Tuma said if Magellan runs into anything, including catlinite, they would have to route the pipeline to avoid it. He drove the site personally as he researched the issue and was confident the ruling will bring a “thorough examination” of the route before construction.
The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office said Thursday that sheriff’s deputies were legally justified when they killed a man in Minnetonka during a shootout at his home.
Clint Lavelle Hoyhtya, 28, was shot multiple times during the firefight late in the morning of April 10 at a home in the 13400 block of E. Crestwood Drive. Two deputies at the scene were shot and survived their wounds.
Deputies were serving an arrest warrant when gunfire erupted. Hoyhtya died at the scene. Dispatch audio and a law enforcement source also confirmed that Hoyhtya was not the subject of Wednesday’s warrant.
County Attorney Mary Moriarty said that her office reviewed the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension’s (BCA) investigation and office found no evidence of unlawful conduct by law enforcement during its encounter with Hoyhtya.
Two of the four deputies who shot at Hoyhtya were wounded during the firefight. Christopher Heihn was hit multiple times, was taken to HCMC for treatment and has since been released. Keith McNamara was treated at the scene after being hit by shrapnel.
Moriarty said her office determined that the deputies acted lawfully, initially retreating to find cover, calling for a negotiator and attempting to persuade Mr. Hoyhtya to stop shooting. She said the deputies exercised restraint and did not resort to deadly force until it became necessary, namely when Mr. Hoyhtya shot at them.
“In our review of the BCA’s investigation, we found no unlawful conduct by law enforcement,” a statement from Moriarty ready. “This was a terrifying incident that left [a sheriff’s] deputy hospitalized with a gunshot wound, endangered the lives of several other deputies and community members, and led to the death of Mr. Hoyhtya.”
