Star Tribune
Security videos show neighbors attacking St. Anne’s Place for homeless women, children
Multiple security cameras of St. Anne’s Place, a shelter for homeless women and their children in north Minneapolis, captured repeated assaults involving nearly a dozen people on their residents and building on the night of Sept. 5.
The Star Tribune has reviewed full-length exterior and interior footage from three cameras showing people — apparently neighbors from two homes across the street — pursuing residents across the front yard of the property before slugging two closed doors of the shelter with a bat, causing glass to burst into the main hallway of St. Anne’s Place, with women holding babies on just the other side. A neighbor can be clearly seen making a long gun gesture toward the front door. A shelter resident’s van was smashed before and after police arrived, and possibly shot.
The entire incident lasted about four hours. Shelter staff said ongoing disputes over street parking led up to the attack.
The footage, which contains no audio, shows police arriving after most of the violence had already taken place. Once they leave, neighbors can be seen resuming vandalism of the shelter resident’s car, knocking off a side view mirror to a minivan of a St. Anne’s resident, sending the mirror bouncing across the street. A different set of police officers briefly return to the scene at one point, but they may not have realized that the vehicle had been further damaged since their colleagues’ departure.
People Serving People, which has operated St. Anne’s Place since May, criticized the police response. The footage confirms that Minneapolis Police spoke first to the aggressors before making their way over to the shelter, where multiple people had called 911. People Serving People said the first officers to arrive were dismissive of victims and made no arrests despite some parts of the security footage clearly showing the assailants’ faces.
People Serving People have vacated St. Anne’s Place, relocating about 50 women and children in area hotels at a cost of $9,000 a night, which CEO Hoang Murphy called unsustainable. If St. Anne’s Place is not made safe enough for staff and residents to return, People Serving People must make room for them in its other shelters, reducing the nonprofit’s capacity to take in others experiencing homelessness.
A shelter resident’s vehicle was vandalized before and after police arrived by across-the-street neighbors. Shelter staff said ongoing disputes over street parking led up to violence on the night of Sept. 5.
Murphy contacted Mayor Jacob Frey and the City Council requesting a legitimate investigation of the attacks.
On Tuesday MPD spokesman Garrett Parten told the Star Tribune that police had not yet downloaded the security footage, but that officers’ nonpublic reports shows the shelter’s narrative was “not accurate.”
Both MSA schools have foundations to support their missions, though the report found that MSA “did not obtain required financial reports from its affiliated foundations, including their annual financial statements or their annual reports about fundraising activities.”
The Minnesota State Academy for the Deaf Foundation was inactive between 2020 and 2023 because the foundation board members had moved out-of-state, according to the report. And the Minnesota State Academy for the Blind Foundation did not file as a nonprofit corporation with the Office of the Secretary of State until the auditor’s office inquired about a filing status in May.
In his letter, Wilding said that, by next month, a school administrator for each school will be assigned to act as a liaison between each school and its foundation. But, he added, “The [Minnesota State Academy for the Blind Foundation] is considering its future and may not continue their operations. If this is the case, we will obtain financial documentation of their fund disbursements for record keeping.”
Over the last several months, Wilding wrote, MSA has updated or implemented new procedures to address several concerns, including how payroll and deposits are monitored and how both petty cash expenses and travel expenditures are approved.
A quarterly review of donation acceptance forms will begin in 2025, he said. MSA’s fiscal services director will also work with the state Department of Education “on the process for returning overreported expenditures” — a process Wilding wrote should be completed by January 2025.
Star Tribune
Sentence topping 8 years for man whose ricochet gunshot struck Minneapolis girl, 11, in face
A 45-year-old man received a prison term Tuesday topping eight years for squeezing off automatic gunfire moments into New Year’s Day in Minneapolis that ricocheted and struck a girl in the face while she was looking out her second-story bedroom window.
James William Turner, of Fridley, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis after pleading guilty to being a felon in possession of ammunition in connection with the shooting of Laneria Wilson, 11, on Jan. 1 near 23rd and Bryant avenues N.
With federal sentencing guidelines recommending a sentence of anywhere from 8⅓ to nearly 10½ years in prison, Judge Ann Montgomery opted for the lowest point in that range and added three years of court supervision after his release.
Ahead of sentencing, prosecutors pointed out to Montgomery that “instead of celebrating New Year’s with her friends or family, [Laneria] spent the evening having bullet fragments removed from her face. The victim could easily have been killed. Moreover, the bullet that struck the 11-year-old appears to be one of 24 shots Turner fired that night — 24 bullets that could have injured or killed innocent people.”
Prosecutors also noted that Turner’s criminal history spans his entire adult life and includes convictions for second-degree assault in Anoka County and domestic assault in Ramsey County. Those convictions barred him from possessing guns or ammunition.
Defense attorney F. Clayton Tyler asked that Turner receive a five-year term, arguing that he has abstained from illicit drugs and alcohol since his arrest and has completed mental health therapy.
Also, Tyler added, while Turner admitted to firing the automatic rifle, “he did not do so maliciously or with intent to hurt or frighten anyone. On the contrary, he considered himself close friends with the child’s mother and had previously babysat the child.”
Laneria’s mother, Shenedra Ross, told the Star Tribune in May that since the shooting, she moved her family about two hours west of Minneapolis, where they had lived previously. In the days after being shot, just shy of her 12th birthday, Ross said, Laneria had difficulty coping and was afraid to be near windows.
A 34-year-old Dilworth man who was hit in the head by a stray bullet Saturday while deer hunting is not expected to survive.
According to the Clay County Sheriff’s Office, Jace Srur was shot by someone within his hunting party in rural Moorhead on Nov. 9. Authorities had responded around 8 a.m. and provided first aid before an ambulance arrived and Srur was air lifted to Sanford Hospital.
As of Tuesday, Srur’s injuries were considered “life-threatening and non-survivable,” according to the sheriff’s office. The shooting is still under investigation.
On the same day, a 37-year-old man was injured in a hunting accident in Lee Township, Minn., however, his injuries weren’t life threatening.
Saturday was the start of Minnesota’s firearm deer hunting season.
