A slain Minnesota lawmaker's beloved dog, Gilbert, stays with her as she and her spouse lie in state
Gilbert was with his family when a gunman murdered two of his family members, a prominent Minnesota legislator and her husband, and the golden retriever was beside them as they lay in state Friday at the state Capitol.
He is all but certainly the first dog to receive the honor, having been put down after being badly injured in the attack. There is no record of any other non-human ever lying in state, and the late state Rep. Melissa Hortman , the state House's top Democrat and a former speaker, is the first woman. The state previously granted the honor to 19 men, including a vice president, a U.S. secretary of state, U.S. senators, governors and a Civil War veteran, according to the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library.
Gilbert has received a flood tributes like Hortman and her husband, Mark, ever since news spread online that he had been shot, too, in the attack early on the morning of June 14 by a man posing as a police officer. The accused assassin, Vance Boelter, is also charged with shooting a prominent Democratic state senator and his wife, and authorities say Boelter visited two other Democratic lawmakers' homes without encountering them.
The dog's injuries were severe enough that surviving family members had him put to sleep at a veterinary clinic in the Hortmans' hometown of Brooklyn Park, a Minneapolis suburb. The clinic, Allied Emergency Veterinary Service, called Gilbert 'sweet and gentle' and 'deeply loved' on a GoFundMe site raising money for the care of local police dogs.
Hours after the shootings, a nonprofit that trains service dogs, Helping Paws Inc., posted a picture on Facebook of Gilibert with the murdered Minnesota lawmaker, both smiling. The Hortmans provided a foster home to dogs to help train them to be service animals, and one of them, Minnie, had graduated on to assisting a veteran.
But Helping Paws said in its post that Gilbert 'eventually career changed.'
One of Hortman's fellow lawmakers, Democratic Rep. Erin Koegel, told AP that the golden retriever had 'flunked out of school' and that 'Melissa wanted him to fail so she could keep him.' Gilbert had been deemed 'too friendly' to be a service dog, KARE-TV reported.
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Associated Press
22 minutes ago
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Biden pays respects as former Minnesota House Speaker Hortman, killed in shooting, lies in state
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It's also unclear how many additional federal agents have so far been re-assigned to immigration enforcement. Masked agents refusing to identify themselves In Huntington Park, Calif, authorities this week detained a man they said appeared to be pretending to be an ICE agent ‒ a situation they said was possible because real ICE agents are refusing to properly identify themselves as they aggressively detain people. Mayor Arturo Flores said the way ICE agents are acting does not present "the image of a just and lawful government." He said he can understand why people are angry and scared, especially knowing there are potential vigilantes and impersonators operating in the area. In response to the accused impersonator's arrest, Huntington Park leaders asked local police to verify the identity of any suspected ICE agents operating in the city. 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"This is a radical tactical shift compared to Trump 1.0," David Bier, Cato director of immigration studies, in a post on X. ICE officials said they are responding to interference by the public. They say advocacy groups are stalking agents as they try to make arrests, putting the agents at risk and allowing their targets to escape. Federal agents testifying before a Senate committee on June 26 said that during a recent enforcement operation bystanders photographed an officer and posted the photo online with a threatening message. There's been a small but growing number of incidents, too, in which people called their local police department to report the presence of armed, masked men bundling community members into unmarked vehicles. ICE officials also often say that if hundreds of "sanctuary" jurisdictions around the country would hand over immigrants after they've completed a criminal sentence, that would reduce the need for agents to make risky, public arrests. But prior to Trump's enforcement ramp-up – about 70% of people arrested by ICE were transferred directly from the prison system into ICE custody, according to the nonprofit Freedom for Immigrants. Trump's new approach has pushed agents to make more arrests in the community at places like Home Depot. The push to meet a quota is driving agents toward raids and round-ups that expose them to greater risk in the field, says Goldstein. She worries that aggressive tactics combined with masks will eventually lead to a shootout. Twenty-eight states have "Stand Your Ground" laws that allow citizens to shoot if they feel threatened. "If you have masked people running out at you, someone's going to pull a gun out and someone's going to get hurt," she said. Trump's Homeland Security leadership appears to have no plans to back down. "Federal law enforcement is facing an ever-escalating increase in assaults," DHS posted to X, "but we will not be deterred."
