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Ramsey County accepting bids to build small treatment homes for troubled youth
The Intensive Therapeutic Healing and Treatment Homes will serve youth involved in the justice system and need intense treatment in a secure setting.
ST PAUL, Minn. — Editor’s note: The video above first aired on KARE 11 in September 2024.
Ramsey County leaders laid out plans to open multiple small treatment homes to serve the county’s most at-risk youth in a secure setting, an attempt to get a handle on juvenile repeat offenders.
The county received money from the state legislature in 2023 to open small, homelike settings where youth can have mental, behavioral or chemical health needs met. Officials asked for proposals to run the facilities in November 2024 hoping to have one or more up and running by May 2025.
“It fills a critical gap,” said County Attorney John Choi, who along with Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher, helped spearhead the program.
That gap is the lack of placements for youth who’ve committed crimes and cannot safely return to the community, but also aren’t a good fit for a juvenile prison like Red Wing. Many have severe mental health, trauma or behavioral health needs to address.
The treatment homes will be based in Ramsey County where family members can participate in their treatment. Unlike many group homes, they can be locked to help prevent runaways.
Sheriff Fletcher talked about the department’s work to crack down on car theft and carjacking involving youth. He said he’s learned many youth in the system come from homes where addiction, homelessness and poverty are common.
Fletcher believes the new treatment homes can help steer them down a more productive path while keeping the public safe.
“The number of kids who need this intensive treatment is really small,” Fletcher said. “The younger you can get treatment for these ills, the better.”
The county is asking for community-based organizations to develop culturally responsive homes for up to six youth at a time. The county will use money from the legislature to get them up and running.
Choi says they will also work to increase the reimbursement rate for providers who take on the difficult job.
County leaders pointed to the uniqueness of the program and said while it’s not the only solution to repeat youth crime, they believe it is an important start.
Tyrone Terrill who runs a navigators program for kids in the juvenile justice system said it’s vital. “A lot of children from birth never had a chance,” he said. “I believe these homes will give kids a chance.”
The move comes as metro counties grapple with a post-pandemic rise in juvenile crime and a lack of facilities to rehabilitate youth — some of whom are incompetent to stand trial because of their young age, mental illness or low IQ.
In November, the Hennepin County Board approved emergency action to turn part of a county building into a Youth Behavioral Health Crisis Stabilization Center to house troubled kids accused of crimes who need secure treatment.
The action came after a judge blasted the county for holding children in jail illegally.
Police request that the public does not search for the man as it may hinder “official” law enforcement attempts.
CANNON FALLS, Minn. — Cannon Falls police officers will continue the search Thursday for a 60-year-old man after he went missing Monday night.
On Facebook, the department shared the man went missing after taking his dog for a walk in the woods around 8 p.m. near the 300 block of Larkspur Lane. Cannon Falls police searched that night until 2 a.m. Tuesday and picked up again Tuesday morning.
Due to expected high winds and low temperatures on Wednesday, Cannon Falls police shared on Facebook that they won’t continue the search until Thursday at the earliest for the safety of the searchers. Officers requested the public not join in the search for the man as it could hinder official attempts.
In the Facebook post, Cannon Falls police reminded the public to stay off the ice on rivers and lakes as it is not at a safe thickness.
Tuesday’s search took place on foot and in the air with help from the Minnesota State Patrol helicopter. Officers were assisted by the Department of Natural Resources, Dakota County Special Operations Team, two neighboring sheriff’s offices and eight fire departments.
KARE 11 will update this story as more information becomes available.
A Southwest Washington man was driving on Interstate 205 when someone threw something what he described as small beads at his car.
VANCOUVER, Wash. — It was a close call for a Vancouver man who was driving on Interstate 205 when his windshield was shattered after somebody tossed what he describes as beads from an overpass.
Thankfully, the driver wasn’t hurt, but whoever was behind it caused over $1,000 in damages to his car.
A normal Monday quickly turned into a nightmare for a man who drove under the 63rd Street overpass in Vancouver.
“The next thing I know, once I go under it, this object that I thought was a rock came crashing into the windshield, and I was stunned,” said the driver of the car, who didn’t want to be identified.
It wasn’t a rock that shattered the windshield — it was Orbeez, which are plastic water-absorbent beads. The driver told KGW that he believes those beads were frozen.
Once the man got home, he found them all over the inside of his car.
“There was microscopic dust everywhere,” he said. “I mean, my eyes, it went in my nose, my mouth — it looked like it snowed in there.”
Minutes before the driver’s windshield was shattered, the driver said he saw two people along the overpass with flashlights.
According to Washington State Patrol, this isn’t the only incident they are looking into. There have been several reports of people throwing things, such as rocks and cinder blocks, from overpasses in the same area over the last couple of weeks. Nobody has been hurt so far, but two cars have been totaled.
As for the driver of from Monday night’s incident, they said they plan on being even more careful the next time they drive through this area of Vancouver.
A trooper with the Washington State Patrol said they’re looking into all of the cases, but at this point, aren’t saying if they are connected.
The U.S. Army says 19-year-old William E. Colby was reported missing in action on Dec. 2, 1950. His remains were identified just this year using DNA technology.
MINNEAPOLIS — Nearly 74 years to the day since he was officially deemed Missing in Action during the Korean war, a Minneapolis soldier finally reached his final resting place.
The burial at Fort Snelling National Cemetery, which came with full military honors, brought closure to the family of Army Corporal William Colby, but it couldn’t bring back the family – and memories – that have long since passed.
“I was little,” said Jinny Bouvette, Corporal Colby’s cousin, who is also among the few surviving family members who ever met him. “We were about nine years difference when he joined the service, I was ten.”
For years, Bouvette says her memories of her cousin Billy, were always clouded by sadness by what happened just months after he deployed to fight in the Korean War.
Colby was just 19 years old and serving in the Korean War when he was declared missing in action on Dec. 2, 1950, after his unit was attacked by the Chinese People’s Army as they attempted to withdraw from the Chosin Reservoir.
“They figure that’s where Billy was,” Bouvette said, pointing to a green circle on a printed map of the Chosin Reservoir. “That’s where he was the last time that he was reported (alive).”
The young soldier could not be recovered following the battle, and the U.S. Army issued a presumptive finding of death on Dec. 31, 1953.
“We never thought of him as being killed in action, we always thought of him as just missing,” Bouvette said. “My aunt, she always thought he was alive somewhere.”
His fate was finally confirmed for family members by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency on May 2, 2024, after Colby’s remains were identified from 55 boxes of remains returned to the U.S. by the North Korean government in 2018.
The process required a DNA analysis of his remains and a sample from a living relative before it could be matched and verified.
Bouvette says representatives initially tried to reach her, but it wasn’t until learning that her aunt and cousin had submitted those DNA samples that she realized what was happening.
“At first I thought they were just people trying to scam old people, and I wouldn’t answer them,” she said, with a laugh. “But eventually, that’s how I found out that he was really, really gone.”
Just a few months later, the Army’s Past Conflict Repatriations Branch helped return his remains, along with a jacket adorned with a full accounting of his honors.
“He didn’t get them when he was alive,” Bouvette said. “So I told them to put them in the casket with him, so he’s got them now.”
She did decide to hold on to one of his awards for herself, Colby’s Purple Heart.
“I just can’t tell you what it feels like,” she said, looking at the military medal in her hand. “It fills your heart right up. It just fills your heart right up.”
Yet it can’t quite compare to seeing his procession finally reach its end.
“My heart is so full… it is overflowing,” she said. “I just can’t… I have no words. I’m just glad that he’s here, and to know he’s home now. He’s home.”
