Star Tribune
Myon Burrell, whose life term for murder of girl was commuted, is charged with weapon and drug counts
Felony weapon and drug charges were filed Friday against Myon Burrell, the man whose life sentence for the murder of an 11-year-old girl in Minneapolis was commuted in late 2020 after he served 18 years.
Burrell, 37, was charged in Hennepin County District Court with illegal weapon possession and fifth-degree drug possession in connection with him being pulled over late Tuesday morning by a Robbinsdale police officer who said Burrell’s SUV was traveling erratically on N. 42nd Avenue. Police say they found in his vehicle a loaded handgun in the front center console and illicit drugs.
The Dakota County Attorney’s Office is handling the prosecution of Burrell to allow prosecutors in Hennepin County to avoid a potential conflict of interest. Burrell was a paid member of Mary Moriarty’s campaign staff in 2022, when she successfully ran for Hennepin County attorney.
In December 2020, Burrell left Stillwater prison after the Minnesota Board of Pardons voted to immediately release him from a life sentence in connection with the 2002 fatal shooting of Tyesha Edwards, who was killed when a stray bullet penetrated her Minneapolis home while she was doing her math homework at her dining room table. Burrell has always declared he had nothing to do with Tyesha’s killing.
Gov. Tim Walz, a member of the Board of Pardons, proposed commuting Burrell’s life term to 20 years and requiring him to serve the remainder of the time — two years — on supervised release. That supervision expired in December. At the time, Walz noted that the board’s commutation was not a determination of guilt or innocence, but that it was motivated by the “exceptionally long” sentence Burrell received as a juvenile.
“Like in so many criminal cases things may not be what they appear to be,” Burell’s attorney Paul Applebaum said Friday. “I am particularly interested in the circumstances surrounding the initial traffic stop. We look forward to seeing the State’s evidence and will respond accordingly.”
Burrell is due in court early Friday afternoon.
According to Friday’s charges:
Shortly before 11 a.m., a police officer spotted Burrell’s SUV traveling erratically on N. 42nd Avenue and going over the 30 mile per hour speed limit.
The officer pulled over Burrell and smelled a strong odor of burnt marijuana when the driver’s side window was rolled down. He also saw “marijuana remnants” in the center console. He noticed that Burrell’s eyes were red, glassy, and his pupils were dilated.
Burrell objected when the officer told him his SUV was going to be searched. Burrell started walking away when told to sit in the squad car. Burrell resisted briefly, was handcuffed and put in the squad car.
The officer located in the center console a loaded 9-millimeter handgun with an extended magazine and a backpack in the back seat that had two bags of marijuana and 21 clear capsules of a crystal-like powder with the “appearance of a controlled substance.” Sixteen of those capsules tested positive for methamphetamine.
Another baggie held 16 suspected ecstasy pills. Also in the backpack were more baggies and a digital scale.
Police filed a search warrant affidavit to have Burrell’s blood or urine tested for drug or alcohol use.
“I honestly think he used to understand how tariffs work,” Cuban said. “Back in the 90s and early 2000s, he was a little bit coherent when he talked about trade policy and he actually made a little bit of sense. But I don’t know what happened to him.”
Speaking in Pittsburgh on Thursday, Trump’s running mate, Ohio Republican Sen. JD Vance, pushed back against the Harris campaign’s claims that tariffs would hurt the economy. Vance described the tariffs as a way of discouraging imports and boosting American manufacturing.
“If you are a business, and you rely on foreign slave labor at $3 a day, the only way to rebuild American manufacturing is to say, if you want to bring that product made by slave labor back into the United States of America, you’re going to pay a big fat tariff before you get it back into our country,” Vance said.
Back in Wisconsin, Amara Marshell, freshman at UW-La Crosse, said she showed up to support Harris because she is concerned about what a second Trump presidency could mean for reproductive rights. Like her friend, sophomore Avery Black, Marshell is also excited about the possibility of electing the nation’s first female president.
“Women deserve to have power over their own bodies,” Marshell said. “We shouldn’t have to not be able to get an abortion just because of a president.”
Mary Holman, an 80-year-old retiree from Fort Atkinson, Wis., said she hasn’t been to a rally since former President Barack Obama’s first campaign in 2008. But Holman said she decided to get off the sidelines this cycle because she views the election as a fight to preserve democracy.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources will auction off state lands in popular northern counties next month.
The public land — in Aitkin, Cook, Itasca, and St. Louis counties — will go up for sale during the Department of Natural Resource’s annual online public land sale from Nov. 7 to 21.
“These rural and lakeshore properties may appeal to adjacent landowners or offer recreational opportunities such as space for a small cabin or camping,” the DNR said in a statement.
Properties will be available for bidding Nov. 7 through Nov. 21.
This all can trim for print: The properties include:
40 acres in Aitkin County, with a minimum bid of $85,000
44 acres in Cook County, minimum bid $138,000
1.9 acres in Itasca County, minimum bid $114,000
Minneapolis city officials say razor wire, concrete barriers and fencing will be removed from around the former Third Precinct police station – which was set ablaze by protesters after George Floyd’s police killing – in the next three weeks. The burned-out vestibule will be removed within three months with construction fencing to be erected closer to the building.
This week, Minneapolis City Council members have expressed frustration that four years after the protests culminated in a fire at the police station, the charred building still stands and has become a “prop” some conservatives use to rail against city leadership. Most recently, GOP vice presidential nominee JD Vance made a stop outside the building and criticized Gov. Tim Walz’s handling of the 2020 riots.
On Thursday, the council voted 8-3 to approve a resolution calling for “immediate cleanup, remediation, and beautification of the 3000 Minnehaha site including but not limited to the removal of fencing, jersey barriers, barbed wire, and all other exterior blight.”
Council Member Robin Wonsley said the city needs to acknowledge that many police officers stationed in the Third Precinct “waged racist and violent actions” against residents for decades.
Council Member Aurin Chowdhury said the council wants the building cleaned up and beautified “immediately.”
“We cannot allow for this corner to be a backdrop for those who wish to manipulate the trauma of our city for political gain,” Chowdhury said.
Council Member Katie Cashman said the council shouldn’t be divided by “right-wing figures posing in front of the Third Precinct and pandering to conservative interests.”
“It’s really important for us to stay united in our goal, to achieve rehabilitation of this site in a way that advances racial healing and acknowledgement of the past trauma in this community, and to not let those figures divide us here,” she said.
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