Star Tribune
Faith leaders toe the line talking politics from the pulpit in advance of divisive election
This story was reported by Reid Forgrave in Minneapolis, Jenny Berg in St. Cloud, Jp Lawrence in Mankato, Trey Mewes in Dundas, Sean Baker in Rochester, Jana Hollingsworth in Duluth, Kim Hyatt in Lake George, Minn., and written by Reid Forgrave.
ST. CLOUD — Congregants filed into Jubilee Worship Center, an evangelical church just off Highway 15 here, on a recent Sunday. All around were indications of election season.
On church property, visible from the busy highway, were political signs: A Republican candidate for Minnesota House, a nonpartisan candidate for St. Cloud mayor. (Any candidate may pay the church to place signs there.) On a table inside, a sign read, “1 in 3 Christians doesn’t vote. That’s about 25 million people.”
A voter guide detailed policy differences between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump on immigration, inflation, guns and abortion. A church member handed out instructions for a letter-writing campaign asking Christians in Michigan, a crucial swing state, to “vote for the candidates who stand for biblical values.” The script mentioned “transgender ideology,” high grocery bills and criminals crossing America’s borders.
“All we do is encourage people to vote and do their research so they know what the positions are, seek the Lord and vote accordingly,” Rev. Mark Johnson, senior pastor at Jubilee, said after the service. “We don’t promote any candidate.”
Some 70 miles away in southwest Minneapolis, Mayflower Community Congregational United Church of Christ took a very different tone. “PROTECT MULTIRACIAL DEMOCRACY,” read a big sign facing Interstate 35W. Other signs proclaimed progressive values: protecting queer kids, the environment, immigrants and refugees.
From the pulpit, the Rev. Susie Hayward talked about humans building walls: In Palestine and Israel, along our southern border. A couple weeks before, the church’s senior pastor, the Rev. Sarah Campbell, discussed this election in stark terms, drawing on the analogy to German resentment and grievance that led to Adolf Hitler. She spoke of two types of churches, those that enable fascism versus those that resist it.
Neither the church in St. Cloud nor the church in Minneapolis endorsed a candidate. But it was plain where they stood.
A man is dead and police are searching for suspects following a shooting early Saturday in north Minneapolis.
According to police, officers responded to a ShotSpotter activation just before 6 a.m. in the 1700 block of 26th Avenue N. They found a man with life-threatening wounds and gave him aid until emergency personnel arrived to help.
Despite those efforts, the man died at the scene. His name and the cause of death will be released by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner in coming days.
Investigators believe the shooting happened when a fight at a nearby party escalated, spilling onto the street before gunfire rang out.
“Today, tragically, another family has been ripped apart by gun violence,” Police Chief Brian O’Hara said in a statement. “Our investigators are committed to solving this crime and giving a voice to those who can no longer speak for themselves.”
One man was arrested at the scene for disorderly conduct, but investigators were still looking into whether he played a role in the shooting.
Anyone with information about the incident was asked to contact Minneapolis police.
The U is asking the Legislature for $200 million for repairs as the number of crumbling, outdated buildings reaches a crisis point.
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Star Tribune
MN kids with mental health needs cycle through juvenile justice system, often without options
“I will be blasted for this, but sometimes you are hoping the kid commits a crime because then there’s a place for them to go where you’re not worried where they’re going to sleep tonight,” said Benjamin Stromberg, an assistant St. Louis County attorney whose office handles child protection and juvenile delinquency cases. “Nobody wants these kids in detention — we all understand that. But sometimes it’s the one place where they are not going to be hurting anybody or hurting themselves.”
Residential facilities often have long waitlists and deny kids if they aren’t able to handle their specific issues, such as sexually aggressive behavior or substance use disorder.
Psychiatric residential treatment facilities, known as PRTFs, are one step below hospitalization and are supposed to take children with severe aggression, who present a safety risk to themselves or others. This year 281 kids were referred for placement in the four such facilities in the state, according to Department of Human Services (DHS) data, but only 66 got in.
While the facilities are licensed for 150 kids, they were only serving 85 as of June, according to the therapeutic provider association AspireMN. Staffing challenges keep them from taking more kids, executives at several PRTFs said, and while they want to accept as many children as possible, they have to ensure a kid is the right fit.
“Can they manage the [child’s] behavior with the culture, with staff and kids that they have?” said Larry Pajari, CEO of Northwood Children’s Services, which runs a PRTF. “Nobody wants to put other kids that may be vulnerable at risk either, so that’s the balancing act.”
Only 25 children from Hennepin County, the state’s most populous, have gotten into the psychiatric facilities since the first one opened in 2018, county children’s mental health area manager Neerja Singh testified in court, citing DHS data. Singh, a former deputy director of behavioral health at DHS, said children of color generally have not been able to get mental health services at the same rate as white youth.
