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Gov. Tim Walz says son Gus witnessed shooting at St. Paul rec center during VP debate
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Gov. Tim Walz during the Vice Presidential debate on Tuesday night revealed that his teenage son Gus had witnessed a shooting at a community center in St. Paul last year.
“Look I got a 17-year-old and he witnessed a shooting at a community center playing volleyball. Those things don’t leave you,” Tim Walz said.
He was referencing a shooting that happened in January of 2023 at the Jimmy Lee Rec Center, when an employee shot a 16-year-old boy in the head. Gus Walz was one of roughly 100 young people who were at the community center when the shooting happened, according to a Facebook post by his coach, David Albornoz.
Albornoz wrote the post soon after Gus Walz’s viral moment of cheering on his father at the Democratic National Convention. In it, Albornoz writes about the teenager’s contagious love for volleyball, and how he was “keeping everyone safe and calm, looking after the kids in the gym with us as I rushed out,” after the shooting.
The rec center employee — Exavir Dwayne Binford Jr. — pleaded guilty to first degree assault for the shooting of the 16-year-old and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
The criminal complaint states that the rec center was in lockdown due to a fight between a number of girls. A girl who was inside the building was allowed to let her cousin inside, which upset Binford, because “another employee undermined his authority,” documents say. He repeatedly called the girl a “b****,” and the 16-year-old victim got involved.
Binford then showed the two he was carrying a gun, and the 16-year-old and the girl started punching him. Binford then backed up, pulled out the gun, and shot the 16-year-old in the head, charges said.
Tim Walz mentioned the rec center shooting during a line of questioning about gun violence in the United States.
“I didn’t know that your 17-year-old witnessed the shooting. And I’m sorry about that. And I hope, Christ, have mercy. It is awful,” Sen. JD Vance said to Tim Walz afterward.
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PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — Vice President Kamala Harris said she won’t ban fracking natural gas, telling KDKA-TV that her position hasn’t changed since she joined the Biden ticket in 2020.
As a senator back in 2019, Harris once said she would ban fracking, which is the method used to extract the natural gas the Pittsburgh region uses to heat homes and factories.
The Trump campaign insists that is still Harris’ view, so in her first television interview with a Pittsburgh station since announcing her candidacy for president, KDKA-TV’s Jon Delano repeated one campaign ad and asked her directly.
“The ad claims that if you are elected president you will ban fracking and cost Pennsylvania over 300,000 jobs. Have you changed your view on fracking, and if so, why?” Delano asked.
“So let me start by saying that that ad as you described it is absolutely a mischaracterization which I think is intended to make people afraid,” Harris replied.
Harris said her view today is the same as in 2020 when she joined the Biden ticket. Biden said repeatedly in that campaign that he would not ban fracking, a position repeated by Harris.
“I will not ban fracking. I did not as vice president. In fact, I cast the tie-breaking vote to open up more fracking leases,” Harris said. “And my perspective on this is grounded in a number of things, including that we don’t have to ban fracking to do the work that we can do to also invest in a clean energy economy.”
And the vice president took direct aim at campaign ads claiming otherwise, calling them intentionally misleading.
“I’m going to bring jobs back to rural communities. I’m going to make sure that we invest in those communities that have done the kind of work that you have in mind when you talk about Pittsburgh, when you talk about the greater aspect of Pennsylvania. And I’m going to keep doing that work,” she said.
And while she obviously had a different view five years ago, the vice president is adamant she will not ban fracking.
“That’s where I stand, period. As president of the United States, I will not ban fracking,” she said.
Despite her strong and clear words on the issue, it’s not likely to stop the Trump campaign from insisting her earlier views on fracking are her real ones, leaving it up to voters to decide who’s telling the truth.
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