Thursday, October 06, 2022

Who is legit? Who isn't? Jim Schultz says if elected he would better help county attorneys. In turn, County Attorneys flock to endorse Ellison. Ellison wants more accountability from law enforcement. Sheriffs back Schultz. Figure all that out and you come out with trust for Ellison from those who'd know, and dislike for Ellison from those he'd hold to higher standards. Duh. Ellison has sued a retail vendor with an abhorrent record on handgun sales to straw buyers where some of such guns already have ended up used by criminals in shooting crimes. Schultz says crime is a problem, while touting the Second Amendment as sacrosanct. Who is legitimate, based on the record? Who is posturing? Who is experienced? Who is a hedge fund office lawyer who has never litigated one single trial, civil or criminal, bench trial or jury?

Put another way, if it were your ass on the line, which of those two lawyers would you trust with your own litigation matters? Ellison, in court or advising? Schultz, same thing (except perhaps on how to get around SEC rules and requirements on form filings)? 

Headline things. First Fleet Farm being sued for irregular handgun sales - sales ultimately putting guns illegally into the hands of very dangerous people - guns going to public menacing usage:

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison is suing Fleet Farm, accusing the retailer of repeatedly selling guns to buyers who turn around and resell them to violent criminals who cannot legally buy the weapons themselves.

At least one of those guns acquired in such a "straw purchase" was used in a 2021 shootout in a St. Paul bar that left one woman dead and 14 bystanders injured.

At a news conference Wednesday, Ellison said Fleet Farm was "negligently selling firearms to straw purchasers, aiding and abetting these criminals and contributing to gun trafficking in Minnesota by allowing guns to get into the wrong hands."

[...] Ellison said Fleet Farm disregarded "well known and blatant signs of straw purchasing" including multiple purchases of similar handguns, especially 9-millimeter guns, buying sprees over concentrated periods of time and staggered visits by straw purchasers to different Fleet Farm locations to elude multiple-sale reporting requirements. He said these are typical "red flags" of illegal gun trafficking.

"Fleet Farm had a duty under the law to spot and stop this behavior," Ellison said. "Nevertheless, Fleet Farm continued to engage in straw purchase transactions even though they knew or should have known that these customers were not making legitimate purchases for themselves and were likely to resell them illegally." It thus "profited from the unlawful sale of firearm" which were then transferred to criminals, he said.

Fleet Farm denied the allegations Wednesday.

"We strongly disagree with the Attorney General's lawsuit," Jon Austin, a spokesman for the retailer, said in a statement. "We comply with all applicable gun laws and devote substantial resources to training and compliance. It is disappointing that Attorney General Ellison filed his complaint without ever once talking to us.

[...] Attending Ellison's news conference were mayors Melvin Carter of St. Paul, Jacob Frey of Minneapolis and Maria Regan Gonzalez of Richfield, all of whom endorsed the lawsuit. Ellison said he was spurred to take on Fleet Farm after a call from Carter about the problem of straw purchases.

The lawsuit alleges three counts of negligence by Fleet Farm, one count of aiding and abetting and one count of being a public nuisance because it was endangering the safety of members of the public.

Fleet Farm has 17 stores in Minnesota, all of which sell firearms and ammunition, the suit said. The company is headquartered in Appleton, Wis.

Straw buyers convicted

Ellison's lawsuit cites two straw buyers recently convicted in U.S. District Court. Jerome Horton bought 24 guns from Fleet Farm between June and October 2021. Sarah Elwood purchased 97 firearms from nine different gun dealers in Minnesota between May 2020 and May 2021, including 13 from Fleet Farm.

The lawsuit said the sheer volume of Elwood and Horton's purchases put Fleet Farm on notice that they were not making bona fide purchases. Horton is scheduled to be sentenced in federal court Oct. 22 in connection with the purchases. Elwood was sentenced to 18 months in prison on Sept. 14.

Six guns were transferred from Horton to Gabriel Young-Duncan, and several were transferred again. Young-Duncan was charged Jan. 18 with making false statements in the purchase of a firearm. He was sentenced Wednesday afternoon in St. Paul federal court to 3 1/3 years in prison, a term below federal guidelines, followed by three years of supervised release.

[...]

Guns end up on streets

A 9mm Glock 19 pistol that Fleet Farm sold to Horton was found in the front yard of a south Minneapolis home by a 5-year-old boy.

"It's too heavy to be a toy gun," Olin Norseng, now 6, told his mother, she recalls. Olin and his parents, Michael and Sara Norseng, took part in Ellison's news conference.

Olin's father called police, who came and said there was still a live bullet in the gun.

"We're lucky," Sara Norseng said after the news conference. "He (Olin) could have pulled the trigger."

According to the suit, "the gun was likely discarded there by suspects involved in an earlier Minneapolis public shooting incident who then raced through the neighborhood as they fled the police."

Another gun, a 9mm Mossberg MC2C pistol that Fleet Farm sold to Horton on July 31, 2021 — which Horton then transferred to Young-Duncan — was linked to the Oct. 10, 2021, Seventh Street Truck Park bar shooting in St. Paul, according to the suit. The pistol was fired by Devondre Trevon Phillips, who had a prior felony conviction that made him ineligible to possess a firearm. During an exchange of gunfire among three different gunmen, 14 people were injured and 27-year-old Marquisha Wiley was killed.

Responsibility and accountability are important values to bolster when proper conduct seems lacking, and Ellison made the move, as approved by city mayors.

As to endorsements, county attorneys know how to evaluate helpfulness from statewide officials, in practice; or as touted during an election. They support Ellison over Schultz in placing their trust. 

Strib reports

Nine Minnesota county attorneys endorsed Democratic Attorney General Keith Ellison's re-election campaign Tuesday, two weeks after nearly two dozen county sheriffs endorsed his Republican opponent.

The county attorneys backing Ellison are Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman, Ramsey County Attorney John Choi, Anoka County Attorney Tony Palumbo, Olmsted County Attorney Mark Ostrem, Cook County Attorney Molly Hicken, Winona County Attorney Karin Sonneman, Stevens County Attorney Aaron Jordan, McLeod County Attorney Michael Junge and Lake of the Woods County Attorney Jim Austad.

"It is our honor at the Attorney General's Office to be your colleague, to stand with you," Ellison said to the county attorneys endorsing him during a news conference at the State Capitol on Tuesday. "We want to run to you to help because we know about your concern for the victims and the people who are suffering."

Former Minnesota Attorney General Skip Humphrey, Democratic U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, former St. Louis County Attorney Mark Rubin and former Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom also endorsed Ellison on Tuesday. Klobuchar is a former Hennepin County attorney.

Several of the endorsers praised Ellison for assisting under-resourced rural county attorneys with criminal prosecution cases. Freeman, the Hennepin County attorney, spoke on Ellison's behalf both at the news conference and in a recent television ad.

The Tuesday endorsements put some of the state's most prominent county attorneys in Ellison's corner. Ellison's GOP opponent, Jim Schultz, has been endorsed by 22 sheriffs — including those representing some of the state's largest counties — as well as the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association.

[...] Schultz, a political newcomer, has labeled himself a law enforcement ally who will partner with police to address violent crime. He has criticized Ellison for supporting the failed ballot amendment to replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a new Department of Public Safety.

Christine Snell, Schultz's campaign manager, called Ellison's Tuesday news conference "the last gasp of a dying campaign."

"In response to Jim Schultz's historic endorsement by 22 county sheriffs and many law enforcement organizations, the best Keith Ellison could muster was endorsements from a few DFL attorneys," Snell said. "That is embarrassing for Keith, but not surprising in light of his relentless hostility to police and the reckless Defund-the-Police policies he has embraced."

Christine Snell? The manager? Get real. Schultz could not even be counted on to sling his own mud and make his own excuses? Handed it over to one more politically experienced? What can he do on his own? If anything?

________UPDATE________

MPR reporting adds some detail:

 

City and county officials, not the state, has jurisdiction to bring criminal charges against the retailers, Ellison said. And he said other gun dealers could also face civil action from the state if they engage in similar sales practices.

“We need to go upstream with civil tools as well and turn off the spigot of illegal gun trafficking,” he said. “And I want to commend the retailers who are doing the right thing and meeting their duty to stop straw purchasing. We don’t want to generalize, it’s not everybody. Many gun retailers are abiding by the law and we thank them. But for the ones who are not, they have to stop and get in line and obey the law.”

The mayors of Minneapolis, Richfield and St. Paul said they’d asked Ellison to help limit the number of illegal gun sales in the Twin Cities. And they, along with family members of those affected by gun violence in the region, applauded the effort to limit alleged trafficking.

[...] St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter said gun retailers involved in the straw purchasing pipeline should face repercussions for the Seventh Street Truck Park shooting and other instances of violence.

“The fact that guns purchased like that could cost us the life of a 27-year-old in our community is just offensive. And it’s unacceptable,” Carter said. “We see the shooters being held accountable, we see the purchasers being held accountable but until we break the profit chains that allow … some regional manager to make a quarterly bonus off of selling 33 firearms in a matter of just a couple of months we’ll continue to be behind the eight ball.”

The profit chains are what matters most to the NRA, which opposes handgun regulation of any kind. Where Schultz stands on cracking negligent handgun sales to straw purchasers is unknown

Schultz wants to downfund enforcement against business misconduct. He also has accused DFL officials of prejudice against small business in favor of "big box" retailers. 

Schultz also addressed the sentencing of small business owner Melissa “Lisa” Hanson for violating Governor Tim Walz’s (D) COVID lockdown orders.

He said, “It is clear that [Democrat] leadership, especially Keith Ellison and Governor Walz, have taken a selective approach to enforcing their COVID restrictions. It appears that their approach is driven by partisan politics rather than fair and constitutional decision-making.”

He shared his belief that the policies unfairly benefitted “big box stores.” He said, “Big box stores were allowed to stay open, but churches and many small businesses were forced to close.

The Schultz commentary is confusing in that it was a local city attorney, not statewide forces, that successfully prosecuted the actively hostile and defiant bar owner, Hanson, (as is clear from the linked item in the above quote). 

Hence, the Schultz take on big box retailer Fleet Farm as a target of enforcement of community standards against dangerous handgun retailing conduct might prove revealing of who he actually is. He owes us more than a mud-slinging response from his campaign manager.

Is he for or against cracking down on retail profiteering via lax attention to purchasers of multiple handguns of similar kinds, done over suspiciously short timeframes, allegedly for "personal use?"

It is a suit aimed to deter insensitive action of all gun retailers - policing of handgun retailing to stifle profiteering off of recognized but allowed straw buying, to stifle negligent inattentiveness toward the reasonably imposed societal duty to anticipate and recognize straw buying red light signal conduct and to deny straw buyer purchasing, all as a part of a general will and duty to study and regulate business misconduct in general. It is a main part of what a state attorney general must do for a state to assure orderly and fair business interactions with the state's citizens.

Is Schultz not up to the job, or worse unwilling to see it as something he'd have to do if elected? Is he actively hostile to the fact that business practices need policing? The latter possibility seems to be a worry. Is he blind or wanting to appear blind toward business crime? Hostile to a duty to stifle it?

It is fair to ask that Schultz position himself on the question, or that he declare it not of interest to him and campaign advisors. Silence can only mean not of interest.

_________FURTHER UPDATE_________

Searching the web has revealed the AG's official news release of the filing, and the complaint in the action are each online. These are original government sources, supplemented by media reporting previously analyzed. It is not difficult then to say that Schultz has constructive notice of the full nature of the litigation, as filed. As an AG candidate he should be anticipated to keep current on case progress. 

I.e., Schultz knows there is a major duty of business policing and that it is happening now in open public view, even if he publicly opts to remain silent, or worse, to speak next of it in order to belittle the policing aim and effort.

[closing wording has been edited and revised for greater clarity]