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Sunday, May 14, 2023

Strib coverage of Minneapolis DFL Ward 10 events includes: "Saturday evening, Minnesota DFL Chair Ken Martin apologized to the attendees. "While we are still gathering all of the details of what transpired today, I am extremely disheartened by reports that a fight broke out," Martin said. "Violence has no place in our politics, and it goes against our party's most cherished values of democracy, inclusivity, and empathy. I sincerely hope that the perpetrators will be held accountable by law enforcement, and I will work to ensure they are held accountable within our party as well."

DFL caucusing in Ramsey, by comparison, has been more subdued, even during the 2016 Bernie insurgency against an offensively rigged, failing system. 

Coverage of the Ward 10 event happenings was nationwide. E.g., AP headlining:

Minneapolis city council nomination brawl leaves 2 injured; no candidate chosen

Behaving like Republicans. Consider the irony of parts of this campaign video.

Consider this YouTube post of Ward 10 meeting video. As much as you can take of it.

Wierd? And then some.

More noise than I'd want to be at. The candidate owes the community some kind of satisfactory statement, and we await its issuance. For now, the campaign video stands for what it says. And for how things look in light of supporter misconduct.

Enough said.

____________UPDATE____________

Ken Martin released an updated DFL headquarters' statement, which reads in its entirety:

After reviewing video evidence and speaking with numerous attendees of the Ward 10 convention, DFL Party Chairman Ken Martin released the following updated statement:

“As we learn more about the incident that took place at the Ward 10 endorsing convention, it is clear that the conflict was instigated by supporters of city council candidate Nasri Warsame. Harassment and violence are unacceptable, and we expect candidates and their campaign teams to work hard to curb such behavior when it comes from their supporters, staffers, or volunteers. Warsame and his team took the opposite approach at today’s convention by escalating the situation and encouraging conflict. Reprehensible behavior like this from any DFL Party candidate and campaign will not be tolerated.”

“I would like to apologize to City Council Member Aisha Chughtai, her supporters, and her campaign team for the way they were treated at the Ward 10 convention. Our candidates and supporters deserve a safe forum to campaign at, and the Ward 10 convention fell far short of that. Our party will work with local leaders in Minneapolis to ensure future events are not marred by reprehensible conduct.”

WaPo carried the AP feed, Murdoch's NYPost was even harsher in its report. 

Nationwide attention of this kind is not helpful to the DFL, nor to Ward 10 candidates. What happened was embarrassing and unfortunate.