Marshall Community Services activities

June 27: Kid Chef — A wonderful hands-on cooking and nutrition class for kids. Participants will prepare and enjoy “real food” that is both nutritious and delicious.

Blast Off — Rockets are a great way to blend the basics of aerodynamics, physics, and fun. You will learn how to design rockets and what elements make a rocket work.

Tiger Gymnastics Camp — This all-new camp will revolve around Olympic themes and will be fun for all. Instructors will be incorporating all four Olympic competitive events into the camp, large group activities and an Olympic inspired craft each day.

June 29: Jr. T-Ball & Baseball Family Night at the Amateur Sports Complex — Bring your family and friends out to the Amateur Sports Complex for Family Night and cheer on all the Jr. T-ball and baseball teams as they showcase their skills to the community. All T-ball/baseball players will be selling meal tickets during the month of June for this event.

The city of Marshall will be hosting its annual Independence Day celebration on Monday, July 4, at Independence Park. Food vendors open at 5 p.m. City Band concert begins at 7:30 p.m, with fireworks starting at 10:15 p.m.

July 5: Plein Air Painting — Plein Air Painting is all about leaving the indoors behind and experiencing painting outdoors in the landscape. During this class, you will create an entire painting from start to finish which represents the environment around you using oil-based paints. For adults (2-day class): July 5 & 7; for grades 5-12 (one-day class): July 6

Fit to the Core — Are you looking for a positive way of “shaping up” your core and toning your body? This class will use stretching, pilates, and yoga positions to strengthen and tone your core This class is available for all ages and levels.

All City Band concerts will begin at 7 p.m. and be held on Wednesdays (weather permitting) through July 20.

Register online for any of our offerings at: https://bit.ly/MCS2022Registration

$3.2M settlement reached in police killing of Daunte Wright

BROOKLYN CENTER (AP) — A suburban Minneapolis city has agreed to pay $3.2 million to the family of Daunte Wright, a Black man who was fatally shot by a police officer who said she confused her gun for her Taser.

The tentative settlement also includes changes in police policies and training involving traffic stops like the one that resulted in Wright’s death, according to a statement Tuesday night from attorneys representing Wright’s family.

Wright was shot once in the chest by Brooklyn Center Officer Kim Potter, who is white, after the 20-year-old was stopped for expired registration tags in April 2021. The former officer was subsequently convicted of first- and second-degree manslaughter and was sentenced to two years in prison.

Potter is heard on video yelling “Taser” several times just before she fires her pistol.

Wright’s family members “hope and believe the measures of change to policing, policies and training will create important improvements to the community in Daunte’s name,” said co-counsel Antonio M. Romanucci. “Nothing can bring him back, but the family hopes his legacy is a positive one and prevents any other family from enduring the type of grief they will live with for the rest of their lives.”

The Associated Press left a message Wednesday seeking comment from the mayor’s office.

The shooting happened at a time of high tension in the area, with former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, standing trial just miles away for the killing of George Floyd, who was Black. Floyd’s May 2020 death prompted a reckoning over police brutality and discrimination involving people of color.

The fallout from Wright’s death led the Brooklyn Center City Council to pass a series of reforms, including the use of social workers and other trained professionals to respond to medical, mental health and social-needs calls that don’t require police.

The changes also prohibit police from making arrests for low-level offenses and require the city to use unarmed civilians to handle minor traffic violations.

The settlement is one of the largest involving police conduct Minnesota. Last year, the city of Minneapolis agreed to pay $27 million to Floyd’s family.

Minneapolis previously paid $20 million to the family of Justine Ruszczyk Damond, after she called 911 to report a suspected assault behind her home in July 2017 and was fatally shot by Mohamed Noor, one of the officers who responded to her call. Noor is Somali American and Damond was white.

Ex-staffer sues Minnesota police board for discrimination

ST. PAUL (AP) — A former staffer for the Minnesota board that licenses police officers is suing the agency, alleging she was the victim of racial discrimination.

Starr Suggs, who had spent 28 years with the Minnesota Peace Officers Standards and Training Board as an administrative specialist, told KSTP-TV the last straw came in February as a crowd gathered outside to protest the police killing of Amir Locke.

While the protest remained peaceful, Suggs, the only Black employee among a staff of about a dozen, said she was disturbed by the reaction of her white colleagues and supervisors.

“They were running around, panicking, ‘Oh my God, they’re coming!'” Suggs said. “They mentioned ‘Get your brass knuckles.’ One coworker was like, ‘Yeah, I have my knife.’ They were like, ‘Hey Starr, do you have our back?'”

Suggs resigned a month later and her experience on that day is now one of several incidents detailed in a racial discrimination lawsuit she filed against the POST Board last month.

The allegations came just weeks after the board, which regulates law enforcement officers across Minnesota, approved a plan to root out hate speech and white supremacy in policing.

The executive director of the POST Board, Erik Misselt, declined to comment, citing the litigation.

Late last year, the Minnesota Department of Human Rights confirmed several of details outlined in Suggs’ lawsuit but stopped short of calling it racial discrimination because board leaders “regularly treated all staff poorly,” KSTP reported. But department did find “probable cause” that leaders retaliated against her for complaining about discrimination.