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THE VOICE OF BLACK MINNESOTA SINCE 1934
January 5 - 11, 2023
Vol. 89
Phone: 612-827-4021
No. 23
NEW YEAR, NEW GEORGE FLOYD SQUARE?
www.spokesman-recorder.com
New managing editor takes the helm at the MSR
MSR News Service
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he MSR is pleased to introduce Evette Porter as its new managing editor. A seasoned journalist, Porter is new to Minneapolis having spent most of her career as an editor, writer and publisher in New York City. Her career includes editorial roles at Essence, Black Enterprise, Crain’s New York Business, the Village Voice, Black Issues Book Review, The Root.com, BlackVoices. ■ See GRAVES on page 5 com, theGriot.com, and BET.com. As a freelancer, she has written for the New York Daily News, the New York Times, Time Out NY, Vibe, Glamour, and the Huffington Post, among other publications. In addition, she has worked as a freelance editor at HarperCollins, St. George Floyd Square caretakers at a New Year’s Eve gathering. Martin’s Press, Simon and Schuster, Photos by H. Jiahong Pan and Random House, as well as an thing to go back to the way it editorial consultant to digital media Floyd Square in South Minneon his neck for nine minutes By H. Jiahong Pan apolis. and 29 seconds, murdering was. Others want 38th and Chi- startups. Contributing Writer Born in New Orleans and raised “Why can’t you go around?” him. Floyd’s murder resulted cago to continue paying homage to Floyd but have different in days of unrest, as well as in northern Louisiana, Evette has an the person guarding traffic asked. n New Year’s Eve, a ways to go about it. Meanwhile, protesters and journalists losalmost-encyclopedic knowledge of U.S. Postal Service “Why can’t you move over van stopped in front three steps?” the driver retorted. ing eyes to rubber bullets and the City has its own plans to sports and Black athletes, owing in of someone blockSuch is the tension around other projectiles and buildings rebuild its intersection, and part to her father being a long-time even though it worked with college football coach at HBCUs, and ing traffic to keep people safe 38th and Chicago, which became and businesses destroyed. Some people want the entire residents for months to craft a subscription to Sports Illustrated. as they placed ice lanterns on a memorial to George Floyd In addition to sports, she has structures that grace George shortly after Derek Chauvin knelt memorial demolished and every■ See GFS on page 5
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Cryptocurrency meltdown zaps hip hop heavyweights
Evette Porter covered politics, local and national elections, visual arts, theater, film, pop culture and books, as well as social and economic issues. Her passion for journalism began as a photographer for her college newspaper, The Harvard Crimson, and was stoked by the faculty at Columbia J-School, who taught her the tools of the trade. She moved to Minneapolis a little more than a year ago to take a job as chief communications officer for the Minneapolis Public Schools. However, journalism has always been her passion. She looks forward to working with all the weekly’s writers, editors, photographers, contributors and staff in continuing the legacy of excellence at the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder.
Twitter’s Covid misinformation endangers public health
Lifted ban worries health officials MGN By Stacy M. Brown
dramatic downfall. FTX, the Bahamas-based cryptocurrency exchange foundhe fall of cryptocurrencies, the recent wave ed just before the pandemic, parof the investment craze alyzed America and much of the that includes NFTs and world, landed in bankruptcy this trading cards, has not only month, leaving federal authoriruined bank accounts for ties perplexed over the fall of the many but now has the federal $32 billion company. government investigating its Some have compared the fall
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of crypto to Bernie Madoff. “And just as Madoff’s Ponzi scheme fell apart during the 2008 financial crisis, FTX’s collapse arrives amid a broader pullback for the tech industry,” Erin Griffith, a tech writer, penned for the New York Times’s digital newsletter. ■ See CRYPTO on page 5
AP Photo/Jeff Chiu By Anjana Susarla
ously concerned about the possible repercussions. Health misinformation is not witter’s decision to no longer enforce its Cov- new. A classic case is the misid-19 misinformation information about a purported policy, quietly posted but now disproven link between on the site’s rules page and autism and the MMR vaccine listed as effective Nov. 23, based on a discredited study 2022, has researchers and published in 1998. Such misexperts in public health seri- information has severe con-
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sequences for public health. Countries that had stronger anti-vaccine movements against diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP) vaccines faced a higher incidence of pertussis in the late20th century, for example. As a researcher who studies social media, I believe that ■ See TWITTER on page 5
2020 civil unrest draws yet another police assault charge By H. Jiahong Pan Contributing Writer
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ttorney General Keith Ellison last Wednesday announced third-degree assault charges against a former Minneapolis police officer for his conduct during the social unrest following the murder of George Floyd. The complaint alleges that former Minneapolis Police Officer Justin Stetson, 34, of the Anoka County community of Nowthen, repeatedly struck Jaleel Stallings for close to 30 seconds. This happened after Stallings fired a gun at a white van, believing the occupants could be the White supremacists that Gov. Walz warned Twin Citians about. When Stallings realized they were Minneapolis police officers, he surrendered and lay on the ground. Body camera video footage first published in the Minnesota Reformer shows an officer, identified in the complaint as Stetson, saying, “F****** piece of s***” before punching, kicking, and physically slamming Stallings, even after handcuffing him, after the shooting. The assault left Stallings, an Army veteran,
Parks Police and the Three Rivers Park District. He followed in the footsteps of his father, who retired as a Minneapolis police officer in 2012. In his time in Minneapolis, Stenson amassed 12 complaints according to the Communities United Against Police Brutality complaints database. Three of his cases remain open. He received one letter of reprimand in 2016 for not contacting a supervisor about using force to apprehend someone in front of a restaurant on West Broadway in December 2014. He also lied in his testimony against Stallings in court, according to the Minnesota Reformer. Stenson left the MPD sometime this year, and his POST license is also inactive; the last training he took to keep it current was in December 2021. The summons does not list a date for when Stetson is to appear in court. He faces up Courtesy of MPD/MGN to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. The case was investigated by the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Outgoing Hennepin Counwith a fractured orbital, the bone that surThe Star Tribune reports Stenson joined the ty Attorney Mike Freeman referred the case to AG Minneapolis Police Department in 2008, with rounds the eye. Stallings was charged but acquitted and ultimately won a $1.5 million a City of Minnetonka newsletter identifying Ellison in April because of a conflict of interest. lawsuit against the City of Minneapolis in May. him as a community service officer. He became He no longer lives in Minnesota because he told a Minnetonka police officer in 2012 and also H. Jiahong Pan welcomes reader responses to held non-sworn roles at both the Minneapolis hpan@spokesman-recorder.com. the Minnesota Reformer he fears retaliation.