The assistant police chief for the Minnesota State Fair, Michael Coffey, is suing the state government entity which runs the fair, State Agricultural Society, and Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher for retaliation after reporting police misconduct he said he witnessed during the 2025 fair, the Pioneer Press reported Monday.
According to court documents, Coffey said sheriff’s deputies sprayed bystanders with chemical munitions and claims to have video of Fletcher spraying similar chemical munitions into the face of a “restrained, surrendering man.” He also alleged what he believed were unlawful detentions of three people held without charges “until after the fair” by the sheriff’s department. Coffey reported the incidents to his chain of command, and was later stripped of job duties, saying Fletcher “demanded” he be fired, KARE 11 reported.
Related: MinnPost asked State Fair goers about their hopes for Minnesota. Here’s what they said.
After Gov. Tim Walz announced a “restructuring” of leadership roles in Minnesota’s Department of Human Services on Monday evening, Shireen Gandhi, the agency’s commissioner, appointed in February and who led during the fraud scandal, was removed from the position and will instead serve as deputy commissioner overseeing Medicaid services, the Star Tribune reported.
Family members of Evan Denny, a Red Lake Nation member killed in a shooting in south Minneapolis in April 2025, gathered with others at the city’s American Indian Center to honor and remember loved ones who have died or gone missing for National Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives (MMIR) Day of Awareness, observed nationwide on May 5, MPR News reported.
The Dakota-led nonprofit Owámniyomni Okhódayapi announced construction will begin later this month on a restoration project converting a 5-acre stretch of land around the Stone Arch Bridge and St. Anthony Falls into green space to honor the Mississippi River and the Dakota people. The project will replace concrete areas with native grasses and plants and add a waterfall flowing into a stagnant body of water next to the river, KARE 11 reported Tuesday.
“We’ve lost a lot of that history over time and being a Dakota person in my special homeland, a lot of times I don’t feel seen, I don’t feel heard, I don’t see our stories, I don’t see our histories, I don’t even see a language,” Shelley Buck, president of Owámniyomni Okhódayapi and a project organizer, told MPLS St. Paul Magazine. “It’s frustrating, so we’re working to not only restore the land itself, but also restore the culture to the site.”
Related: Crowds at the fair, not these parks
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