Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Koski on Stalker: "We Were Left to Manage it on Our Own"
Minneapolis City Council Member Emily Koski has gone public with the story of "escalating harassment" she's experienced for more than two years—harassment that led her to obtain a restraining order against the perpetrator.
"At first, it was interruptions, disruptions that were unsettling but still felt manageable. Then the yelling grew louder, the outbursts more aggressive, the messages more hostile," Koski wrote in a Tuesday email to constituents in Ward 11. "Over time it turned into waiting and watching, invading personal space, following me and my staff, even to our cars. From there, it escalated to vandalism. And in the end, it became physical intimidation and threatening behavior."
Koski does not name her stalker, but the Star Tribune's Deena Winter reports that the same man has also been targeting Jamison Whiting, who campaigned for and won Koski's seat. Whiting, who has a temporary restraining order against the man but was denied a permanent one, tells the Strib the harasser stole and vandalized more than 100 campaign signs, which he hung around the ward. Whiting also says that the man touched him at the Ward 11 caucuses.
Understandably, Koski writes that the experience led her to withdraw from the public out of fear for her safety and the safety of her family and staff. And she adds that the response from the city, including from police, was not particularly helpful or robust: "[W]e were left to manage it on our own."
"It is hard to put into words the toll this has taken," Koski writes. "The exhaustion of constantly looking over our shoulders. The burden of asking, every time we entered a public space, if we were putting ourselves or others at risk. The trauma of living these incidents and then reliving them again and again in testimony and evidence. And the heavy weight of carrying all of it alone."
Agent Maybe Wasn't "Kidnapped" After All
Did you know the government goons out hassling immigrants in the Twin Cities aren't always truthful? [Pause here for your stunned, incredulous reactions.] Oluwadamilola Bamigboye and Rekeya Frazier, the couple arrested earlier this week after a bizarre incident in which they drove to a New Hope Police station with a Homeland Security Investigations agent in their vehicle, "are sharply disputing the government’s version of events," as Matt Sepic writes for MPR News.
Bamigboye's defense attorney, Kevin Riach, says he disputes “about 95 percent” of what the government has been saying about the situation. For example, he says the agents who approached Frazier's Jeep to accost them didn't display their credentials (shocking); meanwhile the government’s version of events, in which an agent had to jump out of the way of Frazier as she drove away, is contradicted by surveillance video (shocking!).
Here's more from Sepic:
Calling the government’s case “ludicrous,” Riach said his client “may be the first criminal in history to call 911 during the commission of his alleged crime.”
Federal public defender Jean Brandl represents Frazier, who’s Black, and said her client did not know the agents were law enforcement.
“She literally went to the police station because an unidentified white man was in her car and she didn’t know what he was doing there,” Brandl said.
A judge has freed the couple, each of whom have pleaded not guilty to charges of resisting and impeding a federal officer.
Michele Tafoya Still "Seriously Looking" at MN GOP Senate Bid
That's according to Semafor's Burgess Everett, who says the current conservative podcaster and former NFL broadcaster met with National Republican Senatorial Committee officials last week about vying for Tina Smith's soon-to-be-vacant seat.
Like all conservative podcasters, Tafoya excels in the art of spinning something small into months of content. Weren't you "90% decided" on this run back in February? Shit or get off the pot, girl!
I'll put exactly as much effort into this blurb as Tafoya deserves and copy directly from Racket's February writeup:
“I think Minnesota is starving for a moderate Republican who doesn’t tell them that they’re going to ban abortion who is the antithesis of the Tim Walz regime,” says Tafoya, who once challenged Racket's Jay Boller to a debate after he mocked her for throwing away a dream gig to be a online culture warrior. Some of her “moderate” politics include an anti-CRT crusade, questioning the severity of COVID-19, and being transphobic on Twitter.
MNHHOF Heads for IGH
We'll conclude this bleak and shitty edition of the Flyover with some fun news: The Minnesota Hockey Hall of Fame has found a home in Inver Grove Heights.
For WCCO, Aki Nace reports that construction is scheduled to begin next year on the $70 million, 120,000-square-foot facility, which, in addition to the 30,000-square-foot museum and its five exhibit wings, will also boast an ice rink, a performance venue, and a "hockey-themed restaurant and taproom," plus community event spaces. But it'll be a while yet until you can sip a grape skate or a hockey hair of the dog—just two of our pitches for drinks at that restaurant and taproom—and explore the museum. The hall of fame is scheduled to open in late 2028.
