‘We’ve got it covered,’ local Secret Service office says as VP candidate Walz gets more security

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As soon as Gov. Tim Walz was named as a vice presidential candidate, the U.S. Secret Service stepped in to provide security to him, the head of the local Secret Service office said Wednesday.

The Secret Service has agents from around the country who will serve as his protective detail — there are “a significant number of agents” with him, said Matt Cybert, Special Agent in Charge of the Minneapolis field office.

For people who encounter Walz when he’s out and about in St. Paul, or if he goes to the Minnesota State Fair, “you are absolutely going to see the Secret Service,” Cybert said. “We provide 360 degrees of protection, so you’ll see us all around him wherever he goes.”

The Minneapolis field office is in charge of setting up additional security at Walz’s residence in St. Paul.

“There is a lot that’s involved,” including armored vehicles, Cybert said. “We’ve got it covered.”

The Secret Service is required to provide protection for major presidential and vice presidential candidates. Vice President Kamala Harris announced Tuesday that she’d selected Walz as her running mate.

The governor already had a security contingent: the Minnesota State Patrol. The State Patrol’s executive protection unit is made up of troopers responsible for protecting all sitting Minnesota governors and their staff. They also provide security at the Governor’s Residence.

Now, the State Patrol is working in conjunction with the Secret Service, according to State Patrol Lt. Michael Lee.

Increased scrutiny

After the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump in July, which happened at a Pennsylvania rally as he runs for reelection, the State Patrol increased its security presence. That increased presence remains in place, Lee said Tuesday.

When it comes to Secret Service work, the number of agents assigned “depends on the level of how they assess the venue and how much protection they’ll put into those events,” said former Secret Service agent Anthony Cangelosi, who is now a John Jay College of Criminal Justice professor.

There are also behind-the-scene aspects of Secret Service work that won’t be visible to the public, said retired Secret Service agent Joseph LaSorsa, who worked on presidential protection when Ronald Reagan was in the White House and now has a firm that provides personal protection, protection training and investigative services.

And with intense scrutiny on the Secret Service after the shooting in Pennsylvania, which killed a former fire chief attending the rally, “I’m sure they feel it at their top leadership down to the agents that do the job every day,” Cangelosi said.

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Today in History: August 8, devastating Maui wildfires

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Today is Thursday, Aug. 8, the 221st day of 2024. There are 145 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Aug. 8, 2023, a series of wind-driven wildfires broke out on the Hawaiian island of Maui, destroying the town of Lahaina and killing more than 100 people.

Also on this date:

In 1814, during the War of 1812, peace talks between the United States and Britain began in Ghent, Belgium.

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Today in History: Aug. 4, massive explosion rocks Beirut

In 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte set sail for St. Helena to spend the remainder of his days in exile.

In 1876, Thomas Edison received a patent for his electric pen—the forerunner of the mimeograph machine.

In 1908, Wilbur Wright makes the Wright Brothers’ first public flying demonstration, at Le Mans racecourse in France.

In 1911, President William Howard Taft signed a measure raising the number of U.S. representatives from 391 to 433, effective with the next Congress, with a proviso to add two more when New Mexico and Arizona became states.

In 1963, Britain’s “Great Train Robbery” took place as thieves made off with 2.6 million pounds in banknotes.

In 1969, photographer Iain Macmillan took the iconic photo of The Beatles that would appear on the cover of their album “Abbey Road.”

In 1974, President Richard Nixon, facing damaging new revelations in the Watergate scandal, announced he would resign the following day.

In 1988, Chicago’s Wrigley Field hosted its first-ever night baseball game; the contest between the Chicago Cubs and Philadelphia Phillies would be rained out in the fourth inning.

In 2000, the wreckage of the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley, which sank in 1864 after attacking the Union ship Housatonic, was recovered off the South Carolina coast and returned to port.

In 2009, Sonia Sotomayor was sworn in as the U.S. Supreme Court’s first Hispanic and third female justice.

In 2022, FBI agents executed a search warrant for former President Donald Trump’s residence at Mar al Lago in Palm Beach, Florida; over 13,000 government documents, including 103 classified documents, were seized.

Today’s Birthdays:

Actor Nita Talbot is 94.
Actor Dustin Hoffman is 87.
Actor Connie Stevens is 86.
Country singer Phil Balsley (The Statler Brothers) is 86.
Actor Larry Wilcox is 77.
Actor Keith Carradine is 75.
Movie director Martin Brest is 73.
Radio-TV personality Robin Quivers is 72.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is 71.
Percussionist Anton Fig is 71.
Actor Donny Most is 71.
Rock musician Dennis Drew (10,000 Maniacs) is 67.
TV personality Deborah Norville is 66.
Rock musician The Edge (U2) is 63.
Rock musician Rikki Rockett (Poison) is 63.
Rapper Kool Moe Dee is 62.
Middle distance runner Suzy Favor Hamilton is 56.
Rock singer Scott Stapp is 51.
Country singer Mark Wills is 51.
Actor Kohl Sudduth is 50.
Rock musician Tom Linton (Jimmy Eat World) is 49.
Singer JC Chasez (‘N Sync) is 48.
Actor Tawny Cypress is 48.
R&B singer Drew Lachey (lah-SHAY’) (98 Degrees) is 48.
R&B singer Marsha Ambrosius is 47.
Actor Lindsay Sloane is 47.
Actor Countess Vaughn is 46.
Actor Michael Urie is 44.
Tennis player Roger Federer is 43.
Actor Meagan Good is 43.
Actor Jackie Cruz (TV: “Orange is the New Black”) is 40.
Britain’s Princess Beatrice of York is 36.
Actor Ken Baumann is 35.
New York Yankees first baseman Anthony Rizzo is 35.
Pop singer Shawn Mendes is 26.

Rochester legislator says Harris signs might have led to racist graffiti last weekend

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ROCHESTER, Minn. — State and federal investigators are assisting Rochester police as they investigate a vandalism incident at a Rochester legislator’s home over the weekend.

Rep. Kim Hicks, a first-term DFL member of the Minnesota House, awoke Sunday to find racist graffiti painted on her shed, a swastika on a window of her home, and paint over all but one of the surveillance cameras around her house.

It is a clear-cut case of vandalism, but does it amount to a hate crime?

Initially, Hicks told the Rochester Post Bulletin she was convinced that it was a targeted attack. She is married to a Black man and has Black children.

Now, she says it might have just been the Kamala Harris sign in her yard that motivated the vandals, who were seen wearing masks in video footage taken by her cameras.

“We have to say out loud that there is a problem,” Hicks said. “These things can’t keep happening.”

The incident at Hicks’ home was one of two potentially hate-related vandalism incidents in Rochester over the weekend.

According to Rabbi Michelle Werner, a sign outside of the B’nai Israel Congregation was covered in a spray-painted “300,” likely marking the 300 days since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas War. Amanda Grayson, RPD crime prevention and communications coordinator, said the department opened an investigation into this incident as well, but it does not seem to be related to the vandalism at Hicks’ home.

Despite these incidents and a third widely publicized incident near Century High School in April, Grayson said the department has not seen an increase in reported hate crimes over the last few months.

According to Minnesota statutes, a violation is considered a hate crime if a person commits first-, second- or third-degree assault because of a person’s “actual or perceived race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, national origin, or disability.”

In April, a racial slur was spelled out using plastic cups in the chain link fence on the pedestrian bridge over East Circle Drive. A town hall meeting held days after allowed community members to share their experiences, which revealed grievances spanning over years of systemic injustice.

Community members, including the Rochester branch of the NAACP, believe the act was, in fact, a hate crime. The organization posted online that it would “be prosecuting any individuals that are doing this.” The post went on to say “this #hatecrime will not stand in our community!”

However, after RPD identified the four teenagers responsible for the racial slur on the bridge, Olmsted County Attorney Mark Ostrem announced that his office would not be filing charges.

In his statement, Ostrem said while the incident was offensive, it fell short of criminal statutes and has protection under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The statement said the facts fell short of the threshold to be charged as harassment or property damage. The message didn’t damage property and made no specific threats of violence against anyone.

Walé Elegbede, president of the Rochester branch of the NAACP, said the organization hopes for a different outcome with the vandalism on Hicks’ property.

“We’re calling for the severest of penalties because this is a textbook definition of a hate crime,” Elegbede said. “They need to be found. They need to be prosecuted.”

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Trump praised Minnesota Gov. Walz in 2020 for response to unrest over Floyd’s murder, audio shows

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MINNEAPOLIS — While former President Donald Trump and running mate JD Vance have been hammering Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz over his response to the violence that erupted after George Floyd’s murder, Trump told the governor at the time that he fully agreed with how Walz handled it.

“What they did in Minneapolis was incredible. They went in and dominated, and it happened immediately,” Trump told Walz and other governors and officials in a phone call on June 1, 2020. The Associated Press on Wednesday obtained an audio recording of the call, which has taken on new significance now that Walz has been tapped as Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate against Trump and Vance.

Other administration officials on the call included Defense Secretary Mark Esper; Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Attorney General William Barr.

ABC News reported on the call earlier Wednesday, a day after Harris introduced Walz as her vice presidential pick. CNN posted a transcript of the call back in 2020.

Protests erupted in Minneapolis and around the world after Floyd was murdered by Derek Chauvin, a white former officer who knelt on the Black man’s neck for nearly 9 1/2 minutes, on May 25, 2020. A bystander video captured Floyd’s fading cries of “I can’t breathe.” His death forced a reckoning with police brutality and racism. Some of the protests turned violent.

Walz mobilized the Minnesota National Guard three days later to help restore order to Minneapolis after rioting that included the burning of a police station and numerous businesses. Trump offered federal help to Walz later that day, but the governor did not take him up on it.

During a May 2024 fundraiser in St. Paul, Trump repeated a claim he had been making lately that he was responsible for deploying the National Guard. “The entire city was burning down. … If you didn’t have me as president, you wouldn’t have Minneapolis today,” Trump told a Republican audience. Trump made similar claims at a rally in St. Cloud last month.

It was actually Walz who gave the mobilization order in response to requests from the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Although Walz came under criticism at the time for not moving faster. There was finger-pointing between Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Walz on who bore responsibility for the delays.

Trump, in the June 1, 2020, call, described Walz as “an excellent guy” and later said: “I don’t blame you. I blame the mayor.” The president didn’t criticize the governor at the time.

“Tim, you called up big numbers and the big numbers knocked them out so fast, it was like bowling pins,” Trump said.

But Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt put a different spin on the call in a statement to the AP on Wednesday.

“Governor Walz allowed Minneapolis to burn for days, despite President Trump’s offer to deploy soldiers and cries for help from the liberal Mayor of Minneapolis,” Leavitt said. “In this daily briefing phone call with Governors on June 1, days after the riots began, President Trump acknowledged Governor Walz for FINALLY taking action to deploy the National Guard to end the violence in the city.”

Walz did thank Trump on the call, as well as Esper and Milley, “for your strategic guidance, very helpful. … Yeah, our city is grieving and in pain.”

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Merica reported from Washington.