A guest at a wedding in a Maplewood park pulled out a gun and shot a man who was arguing with the groom, according to charges filed Friday.

Police were sent to Keller Lake Regional Park about 5:30 p.m. Sept. 27 and found a 36-year-old St. Paul man on the ground in the parking lot with gunshot wounds. Good Samaritans had removed their belts and wrapped them on the man’s legs to stop the bleeding. He was taken to Regions Hospital and survived.

The man’s 7-year-old daughter told officers that her dad was talking to the groom, and that it looked like they might be getting into an argument. A third man with long dreadlocks approached, and she thought he was going to split the two men up.

Instead, the girl told police, the third man pulled out a handgun and shot her father, according to a criminal complaint filed Friday in Ramsey County District Court.

Witnesses told police that the third man, who was later identified as Stephan Andrew James, of South St. Paul, then ran across the parking lot and got into a Dodge SUV. He left after a woman and three children got inside the SUV.

Stephan Andrew James (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

An investigator spoke to the wedding photographer, who said he saw the St. Paul man and groom hug and walk a short distance. He heard shouting, saw James shove the man, then heard “two bangs,” the complaint says.

A police canine located a 9 mm Hornady casing in grass off the walking path near the park’s pavilion.

The groom told an investigator they were about to cut the wedding cake when the St. Paul man, who was not invited to the wedding, approached him. The groom said the man was “aggressive and mad at him” because the groom had not attended a funeral. “The groom claimed he did not see the shooting – he only heard it,” the complaint says.

At the hospital, the St. Paul man told an investigator that he went to the wedding to pick up his girlfriend and kids. He said he took the opportunity to talk with the groom about missing a funeral and not having his kids in the wedding. He claimed the groom shoved him and denied that he verbally or physically responded, according to the complaint.

He said the shooter pulled out a gun and told him, “We aren’t playing that (expletive)” before firing. He identified James as the shooter through photos provided to police.

Police conducted surveillance on James and arrested him Wednesday after pulling over a vehicle in St. Paul.

“Officers noted James had cut off his dreadlocks,” the complaint says.

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A black Smith and Wesson 9mm handgun was found under the front passenger seat where James had been sitting. Three of the seven rounds in the gun were marked with Hornady headstamps.

In an interview, James said he went to the wedding in a Dodge Durango. He couldn’t specifically say where he went afterward. He then asked for an attorney, the complaint says, and told investigators that if they “talked with other people, you should understand I’m not a bad person or aggressor.”

The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office charged James, 33, with one count each of first- and second-degree assault. He was scheduled to make a first appearance on the charges Friday afternoon.

James has one criminal conviction: gross misdemeanor possession of a pistol without a permit in 2018 in Ramsey County.

By GRAHAM LEE BREWER, Associated Press

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Native Americans watched the shuttered government on Friday and braced for damage to health care, education, infrastructure and other services funded by Washington under treaties struck more than a century ago.

Tribal nations with casinos, oil and gas leases and other independent revenue sources said they expect to sustain operations for several months. Tribes more dependent on government money were already furloughing workers.

Many tribal leaders said they feared that the Trump administration would use the shutdown to lay off federal workers responsible for ensuring that trust and treaty responsibilities are honored. The U.S. agreed many decades ago to protect the security, health and education of tribal citizens in return for ceding their lands.

Shuttered museums and children’s services

The Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe just outside Reno, Nevada furloughed at least 25 employees starting on Oct. 1 and closed its museum and cultural center, higher education department, and services for Native children in the public school system.

It said the closures would be temporary but that more closures could still come if the shutdown endures.

“As the government shutdown continues other departments may become limited in operation,” Chairman Steven Wadsworth wrote in a letter to tribal members. “These furloughs are necessary to ensure the continued operation of public safety, such as the police, EMS, and the food bank.”

Layoffs coming?

People across Indian Country worried that the Trump administration would use the shutdown to lay off federal workers who uphold their treaty rights.

“I’m extremely nervous about that,” said Liz Carr, vice president for intergovernmental relations for the Cedar Rock Alliance, which helps tribes develop health care, self-governance and land management policies.

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President Donald Trump and his now-former adviser Elon Musk this year called on the General Services Administration to start terminating leases held by the nation’s 7,500-odd federal offices, including 25 regional offices of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

During the Biden administration, Carr was appointed as the first tribal adviser to the Office of Management and Budget. Carr said she was instructed to resign by the new administration and that position remains unfilled. There is a lack of understanding about trust and treaty responsibilities in the agency and at the White House, she said.

“I can see some of those programs being considered either DEI or some kind of waste. Then they come back to dismantle those programs and people aren’t able to come back and deliver those services,” she said. “And the tribes have nowhere to turn.”

Tribes go through BIA regional offices to approve things like road projects and law enforcement funding and 15 BIA offices across 38 states have closed, according to the agency. Federal employees that protect life and property are exempt from the shutdown, but BIA law enforcement officers in the department will likely be working without pay because of the way funds are appropriated.

Damaged trust

The Indian Health Service, a department within Health and Human Services, provides health care to Native Americans and Alaska Natives and will remain funded and operational, HHS contingency plan says.

However, hundreds of health care centers and clinics across that country that are owned and managed by tribal nations but federally funded are a different matter.

Agencies that assist tribes have already closed, including the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which operates the Indian Housing Block Grant, and the Federal Highway Administration, which operates the Tribal Transportation Program.

The National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers — a national organization of tribal workers dedicated to safeguarding Native traditions and cultures — is asking the federal government to halt projects like oil and gas development that require consultation with tribal nations.

The government is legally required to consult with tribes on projects could affect them, and that cannot happen without the necessary federal employees on the job, said the association’s executive director, Dr. Valerie Grussing.

“Projects should only resume when agencies are fully staffed and tribes have someone to consult with,” she said.

By KATE BRUMBACK, Associated Press

ATLANTA (AP) — A Spanish-language journalist who had been in immigration detention in Georgia since June was deported Friday to El Salvador.

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Mario Guevara, 48, was covering a protest just outside Atlanta on June 14 when local police arrested him and then turned him over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement several days later. His lawyers had been fighting parallel battles in the immigration court and federal court systems trying to get him released.

In a live video posted on Facebook Friday afternoon, Guevara is seen, escorted by El Salvador government officials, exiting a vehicle and hugging a woman who pointed a camera phone at him. “Hello, Mom,” he said.

He looked toward the sky and said, “My country, my country, my country. Thank God. This isn’t how I wanted to come to my country, but thank God.”

Guevara’s deportation comes after the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday declined to put a hold on a deportation order issued last month by the Board of Immigration Appeals.

All criminal charges filed against Guevara since his arrest were dismissed by local prosecutors. His attorneys argued that he was being held in retaliation for his work as a journalist and to silence him, in violation of his constitutional rights.

Guevara fled El Salvador two decades ago out of fear, and he amassed a big audience as a journalist in the Atlanta area. He worked for Mundo Hispanico, a Spanish-language newspaper, for years before starting a digital news outlet called MG News a year ago. He was livestreaming video on social media from a “No Kings” rally protesting President Donald Trump’s administration when local police arrested him in DeKalb County.

He is known for arriving on the scene where ICE or other law enforcement agencies are active, often after getting tips from community members. He regularly livestreams what he is seeing on social media.

Video from his arrest shows Guevara wearing a bright red shirt under a protective vest with “PRESS” printed across his chest. He could be heard telling a police officer, “I’m a member of the media, officer.” He was standing on a sidewalk with other journalists, with no sign of big crowds or confrontations around him, moments before he was taken away.

The charges against him in DeKalb County, as well as other charges that were filed in neighboring Gwinnett County after his arrest, were dismissed by prosecutors. An immigration judge in July granted him bond, but he remained in custody while the government appealed that ruling.

An immigration case in 2012 denied Guevara’s bid to remain in the U.S. He appealed that ruling to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which hears appeals of immigration court rulings, but that appeal had not been decided when prosecutors agreed to administratively close the case. His lawyers say he has been authorized to live and work in the U.S. for the last 13 years.

Shortly after Guevara entered ICE custody in June, the government asked the Board of Immigration Appeals to reopen that old immigration case. His lawyers didn’t oppose that move, but they asked that the case be sent back to the lower immigration court because he now has a pending application for a visa supported by his adult U.S. citizen son.

The Board of Immigration Appeals last month agreed to reopen the case, dismissed Guevara’s appeal and denied his request to return the case to the lower immigration court. It also ordered him deported to El Salvador and dismissed the government’s appeal of the bond ruling, saying it is now moot.

Guevara’s lawyers appealed to the 11th Circuit and asked that court to halt the deportation order while the appeal was pending. Guevara’s lawyers argue that the Board of Immigration Appeals ruling and the subsequent refusal by the 11th Circuit to stay his deportation order are based on incorrect information.

A separate case challenged the constitutionality of Guevara’s detention in immigration custody and remains pending in a federal court. His lawyers argued he was being punished for his journalism work and asked a judge to order him immediately released and order that he not be deported while that case was pending.

Associated Press writer Elliot Spagat contributed reporting.

By ERIC TUCKER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — FBI Director Kash Patel says the bureau is cutting ties with two organizations that for decades have tracked domestic extremism and racial and religious bias, a move that follows complaints about the groups from some conservatives and prominent allies of President Donald Trump.

Patel said on Friday that the FBI would sever its relationship with the Southern Poverty Law Center, asserting that the organization had been turned into a “partisan smear machine” and criticizing it for its use of a “hate map” that documents alleged anti-government and hate groups inside the United States. A statement earlier in the week from Patel said the FBI would end ties with the Anti-Defamation League, a prominent Jewish advocacy organization that fights anti-Semitism.

The announcements amount to a dramatic rethinking of longstanding FBI partnerships with prominent civil rights groups at a time when Patel is moving rapidly to reshape the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency. The organizations over the years have provided research on hate crime and domestic extremism, law enforcement training and other services, but have also been criticized by some conservatives for what they say is an unfair maligning of their viewpoints.

That criticism escalated after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk amid renewed attention to the SPLC’s characterization of the group, Turning Point USA, that Kirk founded. For instance, the SPLC included a section on Turning Point in a report titled “The Year in Hate and Extremism 2024” that described the group as a “case study in the hard right.” Prominent figures including Elon Musk lambasted the SPLC just this week about its descriptions of Kirk and the organization.

A spokesperson for the SPLC, a legal and advocacy group founded in 1971 as a watchdog for minorities and the underprivileged, did not directly address Patel’s comments in a statement Friday but said the organization has for decades shared data with the public and remains “committed to exposing hate and extremism as we work to equip communities with knowledge and defend the rights and safety of marginalized people.”

The Anti-Defamation League has also faced criticism on the right for maintaining a “Glossary of Extremism.” The organization announced this week that it was discontinuing that glossary because a number of entries were outdated and some were being “intentionally misrepresented and misused.”

Founded in 1913 to confront anti-Semitism, the ADL has long worked closely with the FBI, not only through research and training but also through awards ceremonies that recognize law enforcement officials involved in investigations into racially or religiously motivated extremism.

Former FBI Director James Comey paid tribute to that relationship in May 2017 when he said at an ADL event: “For more than 100 years, you have advocated and fought for fairness and equality, for inclusion and acceptance. You never were indifferent or complacent.”

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A Patel antagonist, Comey was indicted last week on false statement and obstruction charges and has said he is innocent. Patel appeared to mock Comey’s comments in a post Wednesday on X in which he shared a Fox News story that quoted him as having cut ties with the ADL.

“James Comey wrote ‘love letters’ to the ADL and embedded FBI agents with them – a group that ran disgraceful ops spying on Americans,” he said in a post made as Jews were preparing to begin observing Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. “That era is OVER. This FBI won’t partner with political fronts masquerading as watchdogs.

An ADL spokesman did not immediately comment Friday on Patel’s announcement, but CEO and executive director Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement Friday that the ADL “has deep respect” for the FBI.

“In light of an unprecedented surge of antisemitism, we remain more committed than ever to our core purpose to protect the Jewish people,” Greenblatt said.