News in :90 – Sept. 18, 2019

Yesterday morning began with news as students, faculty, and staff began their day at the university with yet another bomb threat. Parts of campus were evacuated but normal activities resumed after no suspicious objects were found. Check out TommieMedia’s coverage on the administrator’s response to the situation.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension says a man fatally shot by a St. Paul police officer last weekend had confronted him with a knife before he was killed.

The BCA, which is investigating the shooting, says Officer Steve Mattson was on patrol in the Midway neighborhood shortly before 6 p.m. Sunday when his squad car was rear-ended at an intersection by 31-year-old Ronald Davis. Authorities say Davis was holding a knife when he exited his vehicle and ignored Mattson’s commands to drop it. During the confrontation, Mattson shot Davis.

St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter has asked Police Chief Todd Axtell to release the body camera footage “as soon as reasonably possible.”

In other news the Roman Catholic Archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis said Wednesday that he has opened an investigation on Bishop Michael Hoeppner of the Crookston diocese.

This is the first investigation that focuses on Bishop Hoeppner’s alleged interference into clerical sexual misconduct. Advocates for clergy abuse victims say it’s the first known investigation by one bishop into another under a groundbreaking church law issued by Pope Francis in May aimed at holding the Catholic hierarchy accountable for failing to protect their flocks. Among other things, it outlines procedures for conducting preliminary investigations of bishops accused of sexual misconduct or cover-ups.

Zimbabwean doctors protesting the abduction of the Hospital Doctors Association president, Peter Magombeyi, were stopped by a line of baton-wielding police in the capital on Wednesday as fears grow about government repression. Several government critics in recent weeks have been abducted from their homes, tortured and warned by suspected state security agents to back off from anti-government actions.

Some in Zimbabwe have expressed concern that the government of President Emmerson Mnangagwa is becoming more repressive than that of longtime leader Robert Mugabe, who died earlier this month. Mugabe was accused of using abductions to silence critics, and some have never been found.

Maggie Martin can be reached at mart2201@stthomas.edu.