GOP senator to get guidance on emailing ‘appropriately’ after sharing gender transition surgery videos

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A Minnesota state senator will have to get guidance from Republican leadership on how to “appropriately” email his colleagues after distributing graphic videos of gender transition surgery to fellow senators last year.

After that coaching, Sen. Glenn Gruenhagen, R-Glencoe,  will have an ethics complaint against him dismissed, per an agreement reached Wednesday by the two Republican and two Democratic-Farmer-Labor members of the Senate Subcommittee on Ethics.

“Even though we can do something and have no ill intent it can still have profound impact on an individual,” said ethics committee Chair Bobby Joe Champion, DFL-Minneapolis.

Sen. Erin Maye Quade, DFL-Apple Valley, filed a complaint against Gruenhagen in 2023 after the senator sent an email to all his Senate colleagues containing a link to what he called “graphic and disturbing” videos of gender transition surgery.

Sen. Glenn H. Gruenhagen, R-Glencoe. (Courtesy of the Minnesota Senate)

“Attached are videos documenting mutilating transgender surgeries on minor children,” read the email, which contained a link to Google video search results for transition surgeries.

In her complaint, Maye Quade said Gruenhagen’s distribution of the video links, which contained visuals of genitals in a surgical setting, “egregiously violated norms of Senate behavior.”

At a Tuesday hearing on the complaint, Gruenhagen said the email was in relation to a DFL-backed bill protecting minors’ access transgender medicine.

Maye Quade said it was inappropriate to share the content regardless of the context and argued the videos did not have a direct relation to the bill. Further, his sharing of the link demonstrated insensitivity toward LGBTQ people, she said.

Members of the ethics committee tabled the complaint Tuesday night after two hours of debate so they could move on to an ethics complaint relating to state Sen. Nicole Mitchell, a Woodbury DFLer accused of felony burglary.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Sen. Andrew Mathews, R-Princeton, said the agreement does not address whether Gruenhagen had actually violated Senate ethics rules, but he was happy with the outcome.

“It is a good thing to get this resolved, give the path forward to have this dismissed and not have this hanging over the work that the ethics committee needs to do,” he said.

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MN Supreme Court denies new trial for man convicted in fatal St. Paul fender-bender shooting

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A Watertown, Minn., man convicted of fatally shooting another motorist in St. Paul does not have a right to a third trial, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.

The question before the state’s highest court was whether Anthony Trifiletti’s constitutional rights were violated because a judge determined a witness was unavailable to testify at Trifiletti’s second trial in April 2021 because of exposure to COVID.

Douglas Cornelius Lewis (Courtesy of Valerie Lewis)

Douglas Cornelius Lewis, 39, and Trifiletti, now 28, didn’t know each other before a fender-bender in May 2020. The men exited their vehicles and argued in the area of U.S. 61 and Burns Avenue.

Trifiletti went back to his vehicle, returned with a handgun and shot Lewis four times, according to the Ramsey County attorney’s office. Trifiletti, who had a permit to carry a gun, testified that he thought Lewis was going to shoot him, so he shot first. Police found no weapons on Lewis’ body or in his vehicle.

Trifiletti argued during his first trial he did not intend to kill Lewis and that he was acting in self-defense. After a jury reported they were deadlocked, Ramsey County District Judge Thomas Gilligan Jr. declared a mistrial in March 2021.

In the second trial, the only eyewitness to the shooting reported she’d been in close contact with her sister, who later tested positive for COVID. Gilligan said the witness should not come to the courthouse and allowed a transcript of her prior testimony to be read during the trial.

Jurors found Trifiletti not guilty of second-degree intentional murder, but guilty of second-degree felony murder and second-degree manslaughter.  At the June 2021 sentencing, Gilligan denied a departure motion, noting that while Trifiletti was scared, he was never in danger, and had a duty to retreat, according to court documents. Trifiletti was sentenced to 12½ years in prison; prosecutors had asked for 15 years.

Trifiletti filed an appeal and the appellate court took up the matter in September 2022, concluding his constitutional right was violated because his attorney couldn’t cross-examine the witness.

Transcript ‘harmless’

In a 41-page opinion published Wednesday, the justices agreed with the appellate court that Gilligan erred in determining the witness was not available to testify because of COVID exposure. The witness could have appeared in person on April 16, Associate Justice Paul Thissen wrote in the decision, noting a Ramsey County public health doctor told the court as much.

Anthony James Trifiletti (Courtesy of the Minnesota Department of Corrections)

The justices then turned to the question whether Trifiletti was entitled to a new trial. They concluded the 15-page transcript of sworn testimony from the first trial, which was subject to cross-examination, was “harmless beyond a reasonable doubt” and reversed the appellate court’s decision.

Associate Justice Karl Procaccini recused himself, while G. Barry Anderson dissented, writing he concluded that “the record does not sufficiently support the claim by the State that the jury’s decision was ‘surely unattributable’ to the error.”

Anders Erickson, Trifiletti’s attorney, did not immediately return a call for comment Wednesday.

In a statement, Ramsey County attorney’s office spokesman Dennis Gerhardstein said, “We are grateful for the Supreme Court’s decision on this matter as it upholds the jury’s verdict in this case and recognizes the special challenges that were faced by the judge, prosecutor, defense and witnesses during the pandemic. Through the adversarial process and this appeal, it is assuring to know that the measures taken to ensure the safety of those involved in the trial during this difficult time did not deprive the defendant of a fair trial.”

Lewis lived in St. Paul. His sister has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Trifiletti.

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Horace the stinking corpse flower to bloom at Como Park Zoo and Conservatory — for just 2 or 3 days

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Hold your nose, St. Paul. Horace the giant corpse flower is about to bloom — his first grand reveal since arriving at Como Park Zoo and Conservatory in 2019 — and he’ll be making his pungent debut in person and on live stream.

What makes a corpse flower’s bloom special? The smell is best described by its name. Corpse flowers can grow leaf structures up to 15 feet tall and hail from the island of Sumatra, Indonesia. They are best known for their stink, which is in full effect on the rare occasion they unfurl their massive floral structure.

The flowers bloom for just two or three days once every year or two, at best, and sometimes just once a decade.

A corpse flower in bloom at the California Academy of Sciences’ Osher Rainforest in San Francisco, Wednesday, Feb. 28, 2024. In St. Paul, Horace the giant corpse flower is about to bloom at Como Park Zoo and Conservatory. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

You can sniff Horace’s fetid odor at the Como Exhibit Gallery daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., or tune into the live stream and watch others brave Horace’s stink, and get more information, at comozooconservatory.org/horace.

The plant’s livestream feed can currently be viewed on YouTube.

While at the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory, visitors also can take in the summer flower show, which opened May 3 featuring cherry red and pink annuals, and this weekend’s Mother’s Day Bonsai show, which runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday and is hosted by the Minnesota Bonsai Society.

Horace takes his name from landscape architect Horace Cleveland, who designed much of the Twin Cities’ urban park systems. Fewer than 1,000 individual corpse flowers remain in the wild.

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Florida deputies who fatally shot US airman burst into wrong apartment, attorney says

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MIAMI — Deputies responding to a disturbance call at a Florida apartment complex burst into the wrong unit and fatally shot a Black U.S. Air Force airman who was home alone when they saw he was armed with a gun, an attorney for the man’s family said Wednesday.

Senior Airman Roger Fortson, 23, who was based at the Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt Field, was in his off-base apartment in Fort Walton Beach when the shooting happened on May 3.

Civil rights attorney Ben Crump said in a statement that Fortson was on a Facetime call with a woman at the time of the encounter.

According to Crump, the woman, whom Crump didn’t identify, said Fortson was alone in his apartment when he heard a knock at the door. He asked who was there but didn’t get a response. A few minutes later, Fortson heard a louder knock but didn’t see anyone when he looked through the peephole, Crump said, citing the woman’s account.

The woman said Fortson was concerned and went to retrieve his gun, which Crump said was legally owned.

As Fortson walked back through his living room, deputies burst through the door, saw that Fortson was armed and shot him six times, according to Crump’s statement. The woman said Fortson was on the ground, saying, “I can’t breathe,” after he was shot, Crump said.

Fortson died at a hospital, officials said. The deputy involved in the shooting was placed on administrative leave pending an investigation.

The woman said Fortson wasn’t causing a disturbance during their Facetime call and believes that the deputies must have had the wrong apartment, Crump’s statement said.

“The circumstances surrounding Roger’s death raise serious questions that demand immediate answers from authorities, especially considering the alarming witness statement that the police entered the wrong apartment,” Crump said.

“We are calling for transparency in the investigation into Roger’s death and the immediate release of body cam video to the family,” Crump said. “His family and the public deserve to know what occurred in the moments leading up to this tragedy.”

Crump is a nationally known attorney based in Tallahassee, Florida. He has been involved in multiple high-profile law enforcement shooting cases involving Black people, including those of Ahmaud Arbery, Trayvon Martin, Breonna Taylor, Tyre Nichols and George Floyd.

Crump and Fortson’s family plan to speak at a news conference in Fort Walton Beach on Thursday morning.

The Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office didn’t immediately respond to an email or voicemail from The Associated Press seeking comment about Crump’s claims. But Sheriff Eric Aden posted a statement on Facebook Wednesday afternoon expressing sadness about the shooting.

“At this time, we humbly ask for our community’s patience as we work to understand the facts that resulted in this tragic event,” Aden said.

The sheriff’s office said in a statement last week that a deputy responding to a call of a disturbance in progress at the apartment complex reacted in self-defense after encountering an armed man. The office did not offer details on what kind of disturbance deputies were responding to or who called them.

The sheriff’s office also declined to immediately identify the responding deputies or their races. Officials said earlier this week that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the local State Attorney’s Office will investigate the shooting.

FDLE spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger told The Associated Press on Wednesday that it is highly unlikely the agency will have any further comment until the investigation is complete.

Fortson was assigned to the 4th Special Operations Squadron as a special missions aviator, where one of his roles as a member of the squadron’s AC-130J Ghostrider aircrew was to load the gunship’s 30mm and 105mm cannons during missions.

Fortson’s death draws striking similarities to other Black people killed in recent years by police in their homes, in circumstances that involved officers responding to the wrong address or responding to service calls with wanton uses of deadly force.

In 2018, a white former Dallas police offer fatally shot Botham Jean, an unarmed Black man, after mistaking his apartment for her own. Amber Guyger, the former officer, was found guilty of murder the following year and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

In 2019, a white former Fort Worth, Texas, officer fatally shot Atatiana Jefferson through a rear window of her home after responding to a nonemergency call reporting that Jefferson’s front door was open. Aaron Dean, the former officer, was found guilty of manslaughter in 2022 and was sentenced to nearly 12 years in prison.

Crump has represented families in both cases as part of his ongoing effort to force accountability for the killings of Black people at the hands of police.

“What I’m trying to do, as much as I can, even sometimes singlehandedly, is increase the value of Black life,” Crump told The Associated Press in 2021 following the conviction a former Minneapolis officer in the murder of George Floyd.

Fort Walton Beach is between Panama City Beach and Pensacola in the Florida Panhandle.

____

Associated Press reporters Curt Anderson in St. Petersburg, Florida, and Aaron Morrison in New York contributed to this story.

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