'Defund the police' mecca of Minneapolis overrun with violence, ‘failed leadership': former AG candidate
A string of shootings in Minneapolis last week left six victims dead and five others injured in just 24 hours, highlighting "the results" of "years of anti-police rhetoric and failed leadership," 2022 Minnesota attorney general Republican nominee Jim Schultz told Fox News Digital.
Minneapolis authorities on Thursday announced the arrest of James Ortley, an alleged 34-year-old gang member, in connection with an April 29 mass shooting that left four dead and two injured.
The April 29 incident was the first of six shootings in 24 hours that left a total of six people dead and five others injured, police said, adding that investigators are determining if some of the shootings are connected.
"Minneapolis, sadly, is experiencing the tragic consequences of years of anti-police rhetoric and failed leadership from the Minneapolis State Council and the lunatic county prosecutor of Hennepin County in which Minneapolis sits," said Schultz, a father of four and president of the Minnesota Private Business Council. "When city officials demonize law enforcement and slash police budgets and refuse to prosecute the criminals, the results are bought on the streets."
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Particularly, after George Floyd's murder by police in 2020, Minneapolis became "ground zero" for the "defund the police" movement, Schultz noted, adding that public sentiment toward police and officer retention hasn't been the same since.
"Years later, police staffing is still down," he said. "We still have half the police officers that we need. Morale is shattered and criminals feel emboldened because, originating out of that defund-the-police movement … the county prosecutor in Minneapolis, Mary Moriarty, is one of the [George] Soros-funded, hard-left prosecutors who has embraced every policy imaginable to undermine public safety."
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Schultz said Moriarty is "aggressively pursuing law enforcement" and "electing to ... dismiss cases that give lenient plea deals to individuals who had committed serious violent crime, and otherwise embracing a variety of very woke policies, like taking race into account in sentencing guidelines and otherwise."
The suspect in Tuesday's mass shooting, for example, has a lengthy criminal history.
Hennepin County records show Ortley was allegedly involved in a crime spree that resulted in a Minneapolis resident being shot through his bedroom window in February, but the district attorney ultimately denied charges for the 34-year-old, as the Star Tribune first reported.
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In approximately the last 15 years, he has also faced charges ranging from DWIs to first-degree aggravated robbery, fleeing a police officer, illegal possession of a firearm and second-degree assault. These charges stem from two violent incidents in which he allegedly shot at a 16-year-old girl while stealing her phone in 2009 and stabbed a man at a bar in 2021.
A witness described Ortley's weapon used in the attack as a "3-inch-long pocket knife." The witness further said she saw the victim run away from the defendant, lose his shoe and turn around, at which point Ortley grabbed the victim and "began stabbing him in the back," according to Hennepin County records.
In the 2021 bar stabbing, Ortley's latest charge, he was sentenced to serve 39 months in prison and five years of probation, but the court issued a stay of execution, which temporarily stops the sentencing order.
The Hennepin County Attorney's Office (HCAO) did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
Schultz said Minneapolis has seen a recent "improvement in the number of homicides in this city, in particular."
"This, of course, is a huge step back … and a reminder that Minneapolis is still operating with a fraction of the police officers it needs," Schultz said of the mass shooting. "It's still operating in an environment in which many in city leadership are hostile to law enforcement and that crime problems in the city still persist, even if they are not at their peaks in the way that they were in 2020, '21, '23, '24."
The former attorney general nominee said Hennepin County should "set aside these far-left bizarre policies that say that holding [criminals] accountable is somehow unfair because of the circumstances in which they found their lives."
"We need to ensure that violent criminals are put in prison, for a just amount of time for the victims and for the public safety," he said.
The Justice Department on Sunday announced an investigation into whether the Hennepin County Attorney's Office "engaged in a pattern of practice of depriving persons of rights, privileges or immunities secured or protect by the Constitution or laws of the United States" through Moriarty's new directive for its prosecutors to consider race when negotiating plea deals with criminal defendants.
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In a letter dated May 2, DOJ officials cited Moriarty's recently adopted "Negotiations Policy for Cases Involving Adult Defendants," which instructs prosecutors to consider race when formulating plea offers, stating that "racial identity … should be part of the overall analysis" and that prosecutors "should be identifying and addressing racial disparities at decision points, as appropriate."
"In particular, the investigation will focus on whether HCAO engages in illegal consideration of race in its prosecutorial decision-making," Justice Department officials said in the letter, which Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Rights Division Harmeet Dhillon shared on X.
Fox News' Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.
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