Good morning. Here’s your Monday Digest: 1. Less experienced officers disproportionately involved in shootings. It was in July 2017 that two young cops were dispatched to southwest Minneapolis on reports of a possible assault. The 911 caller, Justine Ruszczyk, approached the police SUV in the alley behind her home. The officer in the passenger seat, Mohamed Noor, shot her through the open driver’s side window. Noor had been licensed as a police officer for less than two years. His partner had just one year under his belt. That Noor was relatively green when he killed Ruszczyk is hardly an anomaly. When it comes to fatal police shootings in Minnesota, less experienced officers are more likely to pull the trigger. An analysis of state licensing data by MPR News shows that police officers who fired their weapons in fatal shootings in the last five years generally had less time on the job than typical officers licensed in the state. The median officer who opened fire had been licensed for just about seven years, while the typical active officer in the state has twice that experience. MPR News
2. Former governor Carlson declares failure over sprinkler policy. Calls for more sprinklers after a blaze took the lives of five people in a Cedar-Riverside public housing high-rise before Thanksgiving have prompted some veteran fire officials to flash back 25 years. Twice in the 1990s, state lawmakers passed bills requiring the owners of old high-rise buildings to add sprinklers on nearly every floor. Had the mandate become law, the 25-story Cedar High Apartments, heavily populated by low-income immigrants, might have had lifesaving sprinklers on the upper floors. The fire, which started as residents slept at 4 a.m., began on the 14th floor, pouring deadly smoke above. The tragedy occurred decades after Gov. Arne Carlson twice vetoed broader sprinkler mandates. He did so after the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority and other groups complained that the proposals to retrofit older buildings with sprinklers didn’t come with any money attached. “I think we failed in that regard,” Carlson said in an interview. “From the viewpoint of safety, that should have come first.” Star Tribune
3. Counties balk at paying back state for overpayments. Minnesota counties are refusing to reimburse the state for nearly $9 million in overpayments of federal funds because they say the state — not the counties — made the mistake. County budgets are already set for the year, and some officials say they don’t have extra money available to pay the state Department of Human Services back. The spending was related to substance abuse treatment. The bills range from $46 on the low end for Dodge County to nearly $2.2 million for the state’s most populous county, Hennepin. St. Louis County in northeastern Minnesota was hit particularly hard by the overpayment issue because it has a large population in need of substance abuse treatments. The county is on the hook for nearly $700,000. “It’s a chunk of change,” said St. Louis County Board Commissioner Patrick Boyle. “It’d be three or four plow trucks, with us getting 22 inches of snow this last week and essentially shutting our county down. It’s significant. It’s seven or eight social workers we could have out in the field.” MPR News
4. Federal money comes through for sexual assault kit backlog. Through a federal grant, state and local agencies are hoping to tackle an older inventory of untested sexual assault kits. The U.S. Department of Justice awarded a $2 million grant to the Minnesota Department of Public Safety’s Office of Justice Programs for the second consecutive year on Friday. More than $1.3 million of the grant will go to the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to test kits and help local organizations with investigations. The remaining portion of the grant will be split between the Minnesota Coalition of Sexual Assault, victim services provider Alexandra House and the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office. “The Office of Justice Programs is proud to work with our project partners to find ways to streamline kit submissions, improve sexual assault investigations and provide support to victims across Minnesota,” said Kate Weeks, executive director of the OJP. Following state legislation requiring law enforcement agencies to count and explain untested kits, the BCA discovered nearly 3,500 rape kits that weren’t submitted to forensic laboratories statewide in late 2015. Since the first grant in 2018, more than 250 untested kits were submitted to the BCA’s forensics team. MPR News
5. NAACP says state surplus should go to erasing inequities. After releasing a report that shows the Twin Cities ranks 92nd out of 100 metros for racial equity, the NAACP is pushing government officials to take action. At a press conference Saturday, NAACP leaders from the national and local level advocated for action in the upcoming state legislative session to help address racial disparities in the state. Leaders also detailed a push for members of local NAACP chapters to reach out to local police, organizations and city council officials to talk about these disparities and ways to address them through policy change. With the announcement earlier this week of a state budget surplus of $1.3 billion, advocates are pushing for some of the money to be used to help support the black community and implement some of the group’s recommendations. Pioneer Press | 