Star Tribune
Hennepin County Juvenile Detention Center used unwarranted seclusion amid staffing shortage
The Hennepin County Juvenile Detention Center (JDC) has resorted to the unwarranted seclusion of minors and the use of restrictive disciplinary techniques to compensate for staff shortages, according to a state inspection report released last week.
The annual audit found a series of rights violations affecting troubled teens housed in the downtown Minneapolis facility as they await trial or placement in a secure residential treatment center, including frequent isolation and improper wellness checks.
A widespread review of video footage, personnel reports and inspector observations discovered that the JDC locked children in their rooms for long stretches, canceling recreation time and outreach programming, due to staffing shortages rather than behavioral issues. Tt\he inspection revealed multiple occasions when teens were confined without cause, even when several correctional officers were sitting in a nearby office.
If minors filed a formal grievance about that treatment, their complaints often went unanswered. One in four were not responded to within the required 5-day window — a repeated rule violation by the JDC that has only worsened since their previous inspection last fall.
The report confirms longstanding allegations by attorneys and their young clients, who have testified in court hearings about how bleak conditions inside the detention facility negatively impacted their mental and physical health. Some reported languishing in their cells for up to 16 hours a day, barring them from parental visitation or phone calls.
“The JDC is not a rehabilitative or therapeutic environment, so you already have kids under an enormous amount of stress,” said public defender Tracy Reid. ““They’re not getting appropriate psychological care that a person would need to endure those conditions. So we’re seeing increased violence by the children.”
For months, Reid has sought records outlining how often youth were being locked in their cells and for what length of time. Eventually, she obtained a court order, which acknowledges that the JDC does not specifically track that information. But over a 7-week period, the document noted, there were only five days where programming wasn’t modified for the entire building.
“If the staffing shortage is this bad, they need to treat it as an emergency to fix it,” Reid said, accusing the facility of confining children for “egregiously long periods of time” simply for the convenience of the adults tasked with their care.
Star Tribune
Underground voids from abandoned mines pose danger to people and property when land collapses
Swaths of Pennsylvania and many other states are honeycombed with old, unstable mines that can cause the earth to suddenly give way and threaten people and property.
That’s what searchers in Westmoreland County, just southeast of Pittsburgh, fear led to the disappearance of 64-year-old Elizabeth Pollard. Pollard and a young granddaughter were looking for a lost cat when she went missing Monday evening. At about the same time, a sinkhole appeared roughly 20 feet (6 meters) from where she had parked her car, in an area above an old coal mine. The granddaughter was found safe inside the car hours later.
The search for Pollard turned from a rescue effort into a recovery operation Wednesday, as authorities said they did not expect to find her alive.
Mine subsidence has caused billions of dollars in damage in the U.S. In Pennsylvania, where mining dates to the late 1700s, coal was mined in nearly half of the state’s 67 counties and there are at least 5,000 abandoned underground mines, leaving behind hazards that officials say can arise at any time.
There are as many as 500,000 abandoned mines nationwide — far outnumbering those that are still active, according to the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration. They dot the landscape of coal country and sprawling Western states where mining was common. People have died falling into them, and some murderers have tried to hide victims’ bodies by dumping them in open mine shafts.
The sinkhole in Westmoreland County appears to have resulted from a catastrophic collapse, suggesting the roof of an old mine gave way suddenly after sagging for years, said Professor Paul Santi from the Colorado School of Mines Geology Department.
”If it’s dropping say, half an inch a year, you can use satellite information to detect that and monitor if it is getting worse or not,” Santi said. ”But you can also have these really quick ones that are harder to predict. That’s what happened in this case. You have this roof collapse and overnight a sinkhole appears.”
The Marguerite Mine that authorities believe resulted in the sinkhole was last operated in 1952 by the H.C. Frick Coke Co., according to the state Department of Environmental Protection. The coal seam in the area is about 20 feet (6 meters) beneath the surface.
The family of 6-year-old Eli Hart, who was shot and killed by his mother in 2022, on Wednesday reached a $2.25 million wrongful death settlement with Dakota County.
The lawsuit, which was filed three months after Eli’s death, accused the county’s Social Services department of gross and willful negligence when it returned Eli to the custody of his mother, Julissa Thaler.
“It is definitely a bit of a relief just to have some resolution to this very long case,” said Josephine Josephson, Eli’s stepmother. “It’s a lot of stress to have an ongoing case with a delicate subject.
“I think Dakota County, obviously, they agreed to our settlement without taking any faults. But I think that they truly know that something did go wrong and that they should make corrective actions.”
The settlement stipulates that $1.2 million be paid to Eli’s father, Tory Hart. Three of the boy’s grandparents will receive $25,000 each. The balance of the settlement will cover attorney fees and other costs.
In the years since Eli’s death, his family has created the Eli Hart Foundation. Josephson said Wednesday that the settlement will help the organization establish a scholarship fund and create a legal assistance service for parents who don’t have the means to fight for custody of their children.
“It’s a scary place to be,” Josephson said.
At least 100 University of Minnesota students living in Comstock Hall had no heat in their dorm rooms this week as temperatures dipped below freezing.
Officials say the issue was expected to be resolved by Wednesday night. About two-thirds of the dorm rooms in Minneapolis on the East Bank were fixed by mid-afternoon.
University officials said about 100 out of the hall’s 356 total rooms were affected by the lack of heat, first reported by FOX 9. Last week, maintenance began receiving a higher-than-normal number of requests to fix heating in dorm rooms, though some reports had been made earlier, said Susan Stubblefield, the U’s director of housing and residential life.
“Due to the nature of the heating system in the building, the scope of the problem was not known until reported by residents in each individual room,” Stubblefield said.
A warm fall season and having students leave for the holiday break meant the “full impact of the issue was unknown until the temperatures dipped in recent days,” she said.
Mechanics began working extended hours, including over the Thanksgiving weekend, to make repairs, Stubblefield said.
Air pockets had entered the heating system when maintenance was conducted during the system’s transition from cooling to heating, and that affects the system’s efficiency. The pockets affected some units more than others, Stubblefield said.
To fix things and regain full efficiency, maintenance staff has to clear out the air pockets from the fan coil unit in each individual room. Students were given electric space heaters until maintenance could get to their rooms, Stubblefield said. It’s possible some additional rooms could be affected.
