Public safety briefs: Man is fatally shot on Minneapolis' North Side

Minneapolis police were investigating the fatal shooting of a man Friday night on the city's North Side.

Officers responded to a 911 call about a shooting in the 1600 block of Plymouth Avenue N. at 8:41 p.m., police said. When they arrived, they found a man who had been shot in the head. He was taken to Hennepin County Medical Center, where he died.

The medical examiner's office will release the name of the victim, police said.

No one has been arrested. Officers from the Fourth Precinct and investigators from the department's homicide unit canvassed the neighborhood Friday night, talking to residents and seeking witnesses. They will be in the area again Saturday.

KAREN ZAMORA

The woman fatally stabbed last week in a Minneapolis parking ramp last week has been identified as Mai Yer Cha, 31, of St. Paul.

Cha died of her injuries on Wednesday at Hennepin County Medical Center.

Police responding to a 911 call from downtown Parking Ramp B on the night of July 15 arrived to find three women helping a fourth, Cha, who had been stabbed in the chest.

Friends and family said Cha worked at Comcast in Minnetonka. She was funny, genuine and always eager to lend a hand, they said.

KAREN ZAMORA

A Minneapolis man was sentenced to more than 36 years in prison Wednesday for a robbery-turned-fatal shooting, while his accomplice received 15 years for her involvement in the slaying.

Quintel Flowers, 26, received the second-degree murder sentence for killing Larry Flowers III, 26, no relation, because he thought the latter had shorted him in a drug deal. Quintel Flowers' girlfriend, Nicole Rantala, was sentenced the same day for aiding him in the crime, according to the Hennepin County attorney's office.

SALMAN YOUSAFZAI

Da'Koi Hines is used to seeing drivers going fast as they cross over Interstate 94 on the bridge near his apartment in north Minneapolis. But on Wednesday night, a driver going "super duper" fast rounded the corner from Washington Avenue. He never completed the turn.

Hines was taking out the garbage just before 10 p.m. when he saw the Cadillac ATS strike the curb where Washington turns into 41st Avenue N., go airborne through a guardrail and fall onto westbound I-94. The car landed on its wheels and caught fire just as rescue workers arrived.

The two occupants were taken to North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale. The driver, identified by the State Patrol as Floyd D. Cunningham, 31, of Minneapolis, died at the hospital. The passenger, Lancha Robertson, 37, of Minneapolis, was injured.

Speed was a major factor, the patrol said, adding that alcohol was not a factor.

A Carver County judge sentenced former Chanhassen High School Principal Timothy Dorway to five years in prison Wednesday as part of a plea deal for possessing child pornography.

Dorway, 45, had pleaded guilty in June to seven counts of felony possession of child porn. He will now serve at least 40 months in prison and 20 months on supervised release. Dorway will also have to register as a predatory offender. The U.S. Attorney's Office agreed not to pursue federal prosecution, according to the Carver County Attorney's Office.

At his sentencing hearing, Dorway said he has a pornography addiction and is trying to get help. Several members from the community came to court to support him.

BEATRICE DUPUY

A Dakota County high school music teacher was charged Wednesday with having sex with a 17-year-old student.

A school resource officer from Mendota Heights Police Department received information regarding inappropriate text messages occurring between the student and Funk. In reviewing the messages, officers found conversations that suggested she and the student had engaged in sex.

The two had sex at Funk's home, the high school and in the student's car, the charges said.

DAVID CHANEN

A 21-year-old woman was arrested in St. Paul's Dayton's Bluff neighborhood Tuesday evening after a child apparently found a gun in her purse and shot a 4-year-old girl in the leg.

The girl was taken to Regions Hospital with a nonlife-threatening gunshot wound to her left leg, said Sgt. Mike Ernster, a police spokesman.

The relationship between the children and the woman is unclear, Ernster said. The woman was arrested on probable cause child endangerment with a firearm, negligent storage of a firearm and for possession of cocaine.