U PROF TOURING U.S. TO FIX POLITICS PAGE 2
THUNDERSTORMS HIGH 84° LOW 65°
U OF M
MINNEAPOLIS
ST PAUL
SUMMER EDITION
WEDNESDAY, JULY 26, 2017
EXPERTS AND CAMPUS LEADERS REFLECT ON PARTY DIVIDES.
ONLINE EXCLUSIVES AT MNDAILY.COM
CITY
Police chief ouster shifts mayoral race
The landscape of November’s election could change in wake of the post-shooting departure. BY LAUREN OTTO lotto@mndaily.com
Former Minneapolis Police Chief Janeé Harteau’s resignation on Friday altered the landscape of the November mayoral election. The same day, Mayor Betsy Hodges held a press conference on the resignation, which Hodges requested after MPD Officer Mohamed Noor’s fatal shooting of Justine Damond, and announced the
appointment of Assistant Chief Medaria “Rondo” Arradondo as the new interim Police Chief. Damond’s death heightened an already tense MPD-community relationship and was highlighted when protesters disrupted the press conference, calling for Hodges’ own resignation. “We have a crisis of confidence in the mayor’s office and our police department right now and this was necessary to regain public trust,” mayoral candidate and city council member Jacob Frey previously told the Minnesota Daily Friday. The police-community relationship has been an embattled one which has soured due to events like the Jamar Clark shooting in 2016 and other police-citizen incidents.
CAMPUS
With the election just over three months away, police reform appears to be the central issue for the campaigns. Moving to the forefront Despite efforts to rebuild trust between the MPD and communities, the department has faced setbacks that have further frayed the relationship — with the Damond shooting being the most recent example. Mayoral candidate Raymond Dehn said the shooting has elevated the discussion around public safety and community-police relations. “The people of Minneapolis are paying attention in a very different way from what they may have even two weeks ago,” Dehn said.
With the issue now at the forefront of the mayoral race, Joelle Stangler, campaign manager for Dehn, said it could now be pivotal in the election. “Which candidate can prove that they’re the best on policing is going to be the candidate that proves to residents and to the community that they will be able to manage the force and manage public safety,” she said. The recent Harteau ouster stands out in recent Minneapolis histor y, said Larr y Jacobs, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for the Study of Politics and Governance. “To have a tragic police shooting like this u See HARTEAU Page 4
FOOTBALL
U police ready to coordinate at Super Bowl LII The campus department will work with usual partners, but also new ones like the FBI. BY BELLA DALLY-STEELE idally-steele@mndaily.com
As football fever approaches, University police are prepping for the unexpected. As part of a larger initiative, the University of Minnesota Police Department hosted a soft-shooter training Tuesday at Cof fman Memorial Union, where officers learned how to dif fuse possible active shooters at the upcoming Super Bowl. The training marks just one par t of the force’s collaboration with other local safety depar tments and federal agencies. Like much of the security prep, the training was highly sensitive, said UMPD Police Chief Matthew Clark, and focused on hands-on techniques and drills. For extra room, the UMPD cornered off some of the green space behind Coffman. Clark said in addition to UMPD, officers from the Minneapolis Police Department, the Minneapolis Fire Department, Metro Transit Police, the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office and others attended the training. “I think it just shows there’s a real collaboration between agencies in the metro… not just for events,” Clark said. “We really help each other out.” MPD employs about 800 of ficers and needs the assistance surrounding u See SUPER BOWL Page 8
RESEARCH
Pig organs could help those on waitlists — by becoming human A relatively new method U scientists pioneered may lead to interspecies transplants. BY SYDNEY BAUM-HAINES sbaum-haines@mndaily.com
More than 100,000 Americans are waiting for an organ transplant, and Minnesota researchers think pigs could help them. Miromatrix Medical Inc., an Eden Prairie biotechnology company, works to create human organs from pig organs with a process called perfusion decellularization and recellularization. They hope to conduct a pig-to-human transplant by 2020. “Our end goal is to create transplantable organs,” said Jeff Ross, University alumnus and CEO of Miromatrix. The method could solve the organ donor shor tage, said Angela PanoskaltsisMor tari, a Univeristy medical professor who researches lung decellularization. “We need new sources of transplantable tissue,” she said. Decellularization strips an organ or tissue of all its cells and leaves an empty organ, what scientists call a scaffold. They then add cells to the scaffold, called recellularization, and repopulate it to make a functional living organ. “[The cells] naturally … migrate to their native microenvironment or location within that organ, so they essentially kind of reanimate or reconstruct the organ,” Ross said. u See ORGANS Page 8
CHRIS DANG, DAILY
Head coach P.J. Fleck fields questions from the media during the Big Ten Media Days event Tuesday at the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago.
Fleck sells Minnesota in Chicago New head football coach P.J. Fleck and three other players spoke at Big Ten media days for the first time. BY JACK WARRICK jwarrick@mndaily.com
P. J . F l e c k a d d r e s s e d a p a c k e d conference room Tuesday morning in Chicago, on the final day of the Big Ten Media Days. Fleck and three Gophers players took the trip to Illinois to talk with members of the media covering the conference. Gophers in attendance Running back Rodney Smith, defensive lineman Steven Richardson and linebacker Jonathan Celestin were all in attendance for Minnesota. Fleck called Smith the “personality” of the football team. Smith was last season’s leading rusher with 1,158 yards. Running back Shannon Brooks was second on the team in rushing yards with 650. “The running game, I’m not sure what they did last year, but I do know what we do,” Fleck said. “[Smith] and
[Brooks] are going to be highlighted.” Richardson — a defensive lineman and Chicago native — is on three watch lists this offseason for the Bednarik, Outland and Bronko Nagurski awards, all major college football awards for defensive players. “The culture is everything,” Richardson said. “It’s definitely what helped us grow from the situation we were in.” Celestin was a starting linebacker last year with 80 tackles. Fleck announced during his opening remarks that Celestin lost his father this offseason. “[Celestin] has shown a ton of perseverance over the course of this of fseason,” Fleck said. “To be able to handle that in the of fseason with a new staf f was ver y challenging for him.” Quarterback situation Fleck said Conor Rhoda and Demry Croft were the two quarterbacks who have “separated themselves a little bit.”
u See BIG TEN Page 3
FESTIVALS
Rock the Garden: A lukewarm festival in the tropical heat The Walker Art Center show, headlined by Bon Iver, did little to impress Saturday. BY GUNTHAR REISING greising@mndaily.com
After relocation last year due to construction, Sunday’s Rock the Garden music festival was back to its native ground — the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. Thunderstorms were projected, but the sky turned out clear and sunny. Possibly too sunny. In the 90-degree heat, the crowd felt slightly sedated, muffling some enthusiasm. “I know y’all are sweaty already,” local rapper Dwynell Roland said. “But can I contribute to 10 or 20 percent of that sweat?” Roland was having trouble rousing excitement during his 4:40 p.m. set. The artists weren’t aided by the sound systems (which were merely comfor table rather than arresting) either. The low u See GARDEN Page 5
MADDY FOX, DAILY
Attendees of Rock the Garden look out over the event at the Walker Art Center Saturday.
VOLUME 117 ISSUE 66