Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily midday digest of what local media outlets and Twitter-ers are gabbing about.
Racket Called Best Website in Existence
Ah, the passive voice. It can work magic, especially in a headline. Take this KSTP story from earlier today: “New Minneapolis no-knock search warrant policy called most stringent in the nation.” Stringent! Sounds good. But who’s calling it that, you might wonder. Hmm, it’s DeRay Mckesson, ID’d here as “cofounder of national social justice organization Campaign Zero” (and given a capital "K" for mysterious reasons.) You can read a little more about how Mckesson’s co-founders, none of whom still work with Campaign Zero, feel about his social justice advocacy here.
If that name sounds particularly familiar to Minneapolis residents, that’s because Jacob Frey brought Mckesson in to help craft this new policy. So what we’re learning here is that a consultant brought in to provide cover for a justifiably criticized mayor and police force… thinks he did a really good job. I guess it’s good to take pride in your work, but I'm not sure patting yourself on the back deserves a full news story. You know who does though? KSTP's Jay Kolls, who received nationwide criticism and mockery in 2014 for accusing former mayor Betsy Hodges of flashing gang signs. If you'd like a more accurate take on the city’s new policy, and what it doesn't do, Eamon Whalen at Mother Jones is happy to oblige.
Mosque Bombers Get Light Sentences and Everyone’s Happy?
A lighter sentence doesn’t usually meet with community consensus, but here’s the exception. A federal judge has sentenced the two Illinois men who Bloomington's Dar al-Farooq Islamic Center in 2017 to 14 and 16 years in prison, the Star Tribune reports. This is less than half the 35-year mandatory minimum sentence for domestic terror, but because Michael McWhorter and Joe Morris testified against Emily Claire Hari, their leader in the "White Rabbits" militia, they were entitled to a lesser sentence, the judge said. Both the defense and prosecution agreed that the defendants were under Hari’s influence, and Muslim leaders in the community also requested that the judge limit the bombers’ sentences, recommending restorative justice instead. Not often a judge gets to make everybody happy.
A Single “H” Divides St. Paul Hmong
A difference over which dialect should represent the Hmong community in St. Paul has stirred up nationwide controversy, Tiffany Bui reports over at Sahan Journal. A newly inscribed rock at the Changsha China Friendship Garden reads “Moob Minnesota txais tog koj,” or, “Hmong Minnesotans Welcome You”—an unobjectionable sentiment except for the use of “moob,” the spelling preferred by Hmong speakers of a certain dialect, rather than “hmoob,” preferred by speakers of another dialect. After St. Paul City Council Member Dai Thao suggested that the rendering was not inclusive, a vocal opposition arose to his position arose. Today there are protests in St. Paul demanding Thao’s resignation, and Thao has responded by saying that there should be federal investigation into the activities of the organization promoting the protests.
PSA: Don’t Leave Your Gun in a Restaurant Bathroom
If you leave a gun in a public restroom, don’t expect to get it back later. That’s basically the lesson a 78-year-old gun owner learned this week, says Bring Me the News. (We never really do stop learning, right?) While exercising his Second Amendment right to bear arms at a Maple Grove Portillo’s, the septuagenarian left his Kimber Micro 9 STG handgun on top of a toilet paper dispenser. When a worker discovered the piece, instead of dropping it into the lost and found box, they called the cops. The gun owner, realizing he was missing a personal belonging, eventually contacted police to ask for the gun back, acknowledging that he “understood how dangerous it was leaving his firearm in the bathroom stall.” The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office wasn’t feeling forgiving that day, however, as they have charged him with gross misdemeanor negligent storage of a firearm. Oops! Now he faces a $3,000 fine and up to a year in prison.
