Star Tribune
Manslaughter charges filed against Minneapolis woman accused of killing two in fiery car crash
A Minneapolis woman whose drivers license had been revoked has been charged with criminal vehicular homicide after she ran a red light and caused a fiery two-vehicle crash Monday morning in Minneapolis that left two people dead, others injured and a Metro Transit bus shelter destroyed.
Teniki Steward, 38, was charged Friday in Hennepin County District Court with two felony counts of criminal vehicular homicide and two felony counts of criminal vehicular operation. Charges say she was speeding at the time of the crash and according to jail records, she was booked on suspicion of being under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time.
The two women who died in the crash were Esther Jean Fulks, 53, and Rose Elaine Reece, 57, both of Minneapolis. They died soon after the wreck at 26th and Emerson avenues N., the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office said. Fulks died at the scene, while Reece was declared dead at North Memorial Health Hospital.
Steward had been in custody at the Hennepin County jail since Tuesday, but she was released Thursday because charges had not yet been filed in the case. Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said in a statement announcing the charges that her office had been in close contact with the Minneapolis Police Department and that a case was submitted on Thursday before Steward was charged Friday.
“This was another completely avoidable incident of a car being driven irresponsibly with disastrous consequences,” Moriarty said. “Our thoughts are with the surviving victims and with the families of the two members of our community who were killed.”
Steward has no serious criminal history in Minnesota, but has been charged twice since 2021 with driving without a valid license.
Teniki Steward (Hennepin County jail)
According to court and police documents:
Minneapolis police officers arrived to find EMS and Minneapolis fire department officials on the scene with crash wreckage spanning the intersection. A Buick Enclave with a badly damaged front end was in the yard of a resident. Steward was still inside the Buick. A Ford Explorer had been hit with such force that it traveled up Emerson Avenue North and hit a Metro Transit bus shelter. A 17-year-old boy had been waiting at the shelter to be picked up for school. The boy was transported to the hospital and treated for a broken collarbone.
Health insurer UCare has reached an agreement with HealthPartners clinics, which will allow thousands of patients to continue seeing the same doctors without switching health plans next year.
The two companies announced the agreement Friday evening. The terms are effective immediately.
“As mission-driven organizations, UCare and HealthPartners share a commitment to improving health outcomes for our community, and the organizations’ ongoing collaboration reflects that shared goal,” a joint statement said.
The clinics had been out of network for several years, but UCare had waived rules that would have blocked patients from making appointments. UCare said it would start enforcing the network rules Jan. 1.
Star Tribune
Man charged in Brooklyn Park homicide had connection to 2022 Mall of America fatal shooting
A 19-year-old Coon Rapids man, who played a role in a 2022 fatal shooting at the Mall of America, is facing murder charges in connection with an apparent targeted shooting earlier this month in Brooklyn Park.
Citing witnesses, surveillance footage and cell phone data, prosecutors say that Marquan D. Tucker waited in a parking lot Dec. 7 before opening fire on two people when they exited a business in the 8000 block of Brooklyn Boulevard.
The two victims returned fire, though one was wounded and the other, Ramone R. Blue, 23, of Stewartville, Minn., was killed. The complaint, filed Friday, offers no motive for the shooting.
The shooting happened about seven months after Tucker was discharged from court monitoring related to the 2022 fatal shooting of 19-year-old Johntae Hudson in a department store at the Mall of America, according to court records.
Tucker was charged with third-degree riot in the case and was adjudicated as delinquent, or found guilty, court records said. He was one of three teens who confronted or chased Hudson into the store where the shooting happened. The two teens who carried guns received long prison sentences.
Tucker was being held Friday at the Hennepin County jail. It wasn’t clear if he yet had an attorney.
According to the criminal complaint:
Surveillance video shows a black BMW pull into the parking lot in Brooklyn Park around 1:30 p.m. on Dec. 7. As the two victims exit a business, a man leaves the passenger seat of the BMW, hides behind another car and fires about 16 shots. The gunman then flees in the BMW.
Talon Metals, the company proposing an underground nickel mine near Tamarack, Minn., has backed away from a novel plan that would have used a subway-digging machine to carve an underground loop to reach the ore.
Instead, Talon, which hopes to one day supply the materials for Tesla’s electric vehicle batteries, will dig a straight path down to those minerals. The revised environmental assessment worksheet filed Dec. 12 incorporated public, state and tribal feedback, said Jessica Johnson, the vice president of external affairs for Talon.
“We’re reducing the amount of ground disturbance and the amount of rock that we need to handle and manage,” Johnson said.
By no longer using a tunnel boring machine, Talon has sidestepped early concerns from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources about waste rock, potential contamination of water and an untested technology for mining. But building a single, diagonal shaft underground also means that Talon will be blasting rock closer to the surface, at 100 feet below as opposed to 300 feet below.
Talon is still studying how many sulfides will be in the waste rock between the surface and the nickel it is seeking, the company said in filings. Sulfide minerals that can interact with air and water to create acid mine drainage, or release sulfates that are toxic to wild rice.
The company also abandoned a proposal to pile waste rock outside on top of liners, and now says it will store excess rock inside a central building — or ship it along with ore to a processing plant it intends to build in North Dakota.
Several parts of the facility have been moved inside this building, and the central mine shaft will also reach the surface indoors. Johnson described the concept as a “mine in a box.”
But the new design also introduces new questions, said Paula Maccabee of the environmental group WaterLegacy. She questioned how Talon would be able to supply enough fresh air for workers in the mine when the main opening is enclosed. Previously, the loop design had two openings at the surface of the ground.
