Weeks Before Minnesota Shooting, Program to Prevent Attacks Lost Federal Funding
Weeks before an assailant opened fire on a Catholic church in Minneapolis, the Trump administration cut funding to a program in Minnesota aimed at preventing acts of mass violence, documents show. The cancellation of those funds does not appear to have had an impact in the handling of the attack at Annunciation Catholic School that killed two children and injured 18 other people. However, state officials say the move severely weakens local efforts to identify future threats.
The Trump administration said the money was being used to promote a partisan agenda and did not effectively fight those threats. In July, the Department of Homeland Security announced it was cutting $18.5 million in spending that involved one of its arms called the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships, or CP3. The center was introduced during the first few months of the Biden administration and provides grants to state and local law enforcement agencies and other institutions to help recognize and prevent potential terrorist threats.
Impact on Minnesota Department of Public Safety
About $700,000 of that money had been designated for the Minnesota Department of Public Safety. The reductions were first reported by CNN. With that money, the Minnesota agency made plans to create two roles, a special agent and a criminal analyst, jobs that would have been essential in responding to and working to prevent targeted violence and terrorism in the state, according to a letter in July that Bob Jacobson, the DPS commissioner, wrote to the state’s congressional delegation.
“Without this funding, our capacity to protect our communities from targeted violence and terrorism will be significantly diminished,” he wrote. Since losing the funding, the agency has also canceled a planned statewide training conference and made other adjustments to cover existing expenses, Jill Oliveira, a DPS spokesperson, said in a statement Saturday.
Response from Homeland Security
In its letter notifying the Minnesota Department of Public Safety that the funding had been terminated, a Homeland Security official wrote that the CP3 grants were no longer in line with the agency’s priorities under the Trump administration, which included immigration enforcement, border security and combating antisemitism. An official with Homeland Security said in a statement Saturday that grants issued by CP3 were used for “left-wing ideologies and did next to nothing to combat actual threats in our communities.”
The statement continued: “Far from working to end mental illness, under the previous administration many of these grants went to organizations that celebrated and encouraged transgenderism in our children.” The official added that it was “disgusting” for the media to “politicize the deaths of these innocent children.” When asked if any of its funding had gone toward organizations like those DHS described, Oliveira said the grants received by the Minnesota Department of Public Safety had gone toward personnel and training expenses.
Reaction from Lawmakers
Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., who officials say was on the list of targets the gunman possessed in that assassination plot in June, said Saturday that the canceling of those funds undermined the state’s ability to identify threats like the one at Annunciation. “This shooting was horrific, and to think we had a strategy in place aimed at preventing this type of violence is tragic,” Smith said in a statement.
Earlier this month, Smith and five other Democratic members of Minnesota’s congressional delegation — Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Reps. Betty McCollum, Ilhan Omar, Angie Craig and Kelly Morrison — wrote to Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, urging her to reverse the cuts, even though the department had said they were not subject to appeal. For more information, read the full article Here
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