June 16, 2020
Steamy hot 💦 Tomorrow will be day two of the 90s in Minnesota this week. Southern Minnesota, including the metro area, will see temps as high as the mid-90s Wednesday, while other parts will see highs in the upper 80s. A chance of showers and thunderstorms late night Wednesday. Police used tear gas, 40 people arrested after the 2nd night of protest in St. Cloud. The initial protest started after a police officer was shot in his hand when he and another officer were trying to arrest a suspect. False rumors followed that police had shot and killed a black man, which brought people into the streets. The protest went on for a second night, and resulted in a break-in at a liquor store and some small fires early this morning. In a lawsuit, a photographer says she lost her eye after being hit by a foam bullet during protests. Freelance photographer Linda Tirado filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Minneapolis last week. She says she lost sight in her left eye after Minneapolis police shot her in the face during protests on May 29 with a foam bullet, which shattered her safety goggles. How many Minnesota police departments besides MPD use chokeholds? MinnPost reports that more than a dozen police departments they reached out to don’t allow neck restraints - except as deadly force - and that many said the practices had been out of use for a long time. In the metro area, three of 21 departments that responded to MinnPost said their policy allows some form of neck restraint that is not considered deadly force: Winona, Willmar and Bloomington. COVID-19 in Minnesota today: ICU cases lowest in more than a month; single-digit new deaths. Total deaths in the pandemic climbed to 1,313. Tuesday marked the first time since mid-April that the department reported two consecutive days where deaths stayed in the single digits. The number of people currently hospitalized (357) and needing intensive care (185) also remained roughly stable from Monday. — Jiwon Choi, MPR News | @ChoiGEE1 | 