Minnesota governor and failed vice presidential candidate Tim Walz is fed up with Republican lawmakers’ opposition to all the gun control schemes he wants to see passed in the North Star State.
In fact, he’s so fed up that he’s now threatening to unilaterally make his own laws through executive action, despite the fact that such shenanigans would almost certainly run counter to the law.
At a press conference last week, Walz said he is preparing to take “incredibly aggressive executive action” on gun control proposals because of what he called “stonewalling” by Republicans in the legislature, according to a report at Fox9.com.
Of course, what he calls “stonewalling” is simply lawmakers representing their constituents, many of whom don’t believe more gun laws are the answer to any of the state’s problems.
“I’ll be rolling out a series of incredibly aggressive executive actions because of the stonewalling, and the ability to deal with this,” Walz told reporters in his usual impossible-to-understand speech pattern. “78% of people in the suburbs support an assault weapons ban and a ban on high-capacity magazines. 60% of the people strongly support it across the state, 18% do not.
Those 18 are apparently Republican legislators and leaders who are here at the Capitol. Minnesotans are dying, literally, for us to do more around gun violence prevention.”
His B.S. statistics aside, Walz’s boast about executive action comes after anti-gun lawmakers were unable to garner enough support to get a special gun-control session of the legislature to first base.
Finally, he decided the idea of a special session was just “a waste of time”—one of the few sensible things he has said since he came into the limelight during the 2024 presidential election.
On January 14, Charles Foehner will begin serving a four-year prison sentence.
Yes, New Yorkers, we can finally rest easy. We got him. And by him, I mean a 67-year-old man who poses no danger to society.
Foehner is a retired doorman with the gift of gab, a devoted wife, and a habit of saying “groovy.” He spends his time watching naval history videos on YouTube.
Charles Foehner poses with his wife Jenny Foehner-Speed and their dog Biscuit. Next month, Foehner will begin his four year sentence for weapons charges.Olga Ginzburg for the N.Y. Post
While there are many violent criminals with rap sheets the length of a CVS receipt walking our streets, Queens DA Melinda Katz decided to throw the book at this senior citizen, after he pleaded guilty to owning unlicensed guns.
“The only way I can get out of bed in the morning is to not think about [going to prison],” Foehner told me as we sat in the living room of his Pennsylvania townhouse, where he moved a year ago.
As sun sets on his freedom, Foehner is trying to summon the energy to call the prison consultant, who will prepare him for his grim next chapter.
“I’ve got to really give him a buzz, but I’m so shut down that it’s hard to get anything done. You think, ‘okay, I am going to call’ and the day goes by and I haven’t done it.”
Instead, he’s spending time with his devoted wife Jenny Foehner-Speed and his 8-year-old dog, Biscuit, who was recently diagnosed with cancer. He’s making plans to see loved ones and friends. One of whom is suffering from various maladies.
At 67, Charles Foehner finds himself preparing for a four year stint in prison, while violent repeat criminals roam the streets.Olga Ginzburg for the N.Y. Post
“I don’t know if he’s going to be here in three, four years when I get out. I have friends in Queens who might move. Or they might be dead. I mean, I might not come out,” he said.
He doesn’t know where he’ll be serving his time, but he has one objective: “Survive.” He’s trying to make a plan for his imminent confinement.
“I wouldn’t mind learning to weld. I’d like to become a tutor. I always thought I would be a good teacher.”
Well, the way his case has been handled by Katz has certainly been instructive. And it should enrage anyone with a sense of justice or proportionality.
In 2023, Charles Foehner fatally shot a mugger, who had a long rap sheet. It led police to discover that Foehner, a doomsday prepper had a stockpile of unlicensed guns.Gabriella Bass
Foehner first collided with our criminal justice system in May 2023 when he went out for a pack of cigarettes in the early hours of the morning. Crime in his Kew Gardens neighborhood became a problem after a now-shuttered seedy hotel had opened up in 2017, so Foehner took a revolver with him as protection.
“This isn’t our nice little neighborhood anymore,” he told The Post at that time, noting the brazen drug deals taking place.
But on that fateful night, he returned from buying smokes and saw an unhinged man banging on the door of his building. It was Cody Gonzalez, who then menacingly approached Foehner, demanding a cigarette and his phone.
Foehner, alongside his attorney Thomas Kenniff of the firm Raiser, Kenniff & Lonstein, pleaded guilty to gun charges. Instead of a slap on the wrist, Queens DA Melinda Katz threw the book at the senior citizen.Brigitte Stelzer
“He kept coming closer and clearly he was going to attack me.” Foehner said he pulled out a gun and pointed it at the ground. But Gonzalez didn’t stop. He motioned toward Foehner’s neck with an object and his instincts kicked in. Foehner shot the man dead. The ordeal was caught on security camera.
“I didn’t want to hurt anyone. He left me no choice,” said Foehner.
Charles Foehner is escorted out of the 102 Pct in Queens on June 1, 2023.Gabriella Bass
Gonzalez had at least 15 priors dating back to 2004 and a history of mental illness. Conversely, Foehner had no criminal history. But he is a lifelong gun enthusiast and a doomsday prepper, who had amassed a stockpile of approximately 26 weapons the police found. Only a few were licensed.
“Until that night, I never pointed a gun at anybody. I never had to. I’m not a gun bully…I don’t want power over anyone,’ Foehner said, adding “I believe in the social contract.”
He wasn’t charged in the death of Gonzalez, which was deemed justified, but the DA threw the book at him for criminal weapons possession.
Charles Foehner’s horrific ordeal began when he went to buy cigarettes at 2 am in May 2023.Brigitte Stelzer
Instead of undergoing a costly and ultimately risky trial that could have sent him to jail for 25 years, he took a plea deal.
Foehner’s attorney Thomas Kenniff, who also represented acquitted subway hero Daniel Penny, blamed the city’s “draconian” gun laws that made it difficult for law abiding citizens to legally obtain guns for protection.
Clearly, Katz insisted on exacting maximum pain onto Foehner.
In fact, she heartlessly requested he spend the last few months in Rikers, but the judge granted one last mercy and allowed him to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas at home.
I cannot imagine how anyone in that office believes justice is being served here. Why are we spending tax dollars to let this good man rot in jail? Give him an ankle bracelet, probation or community service.
Foehner acknowledges he should receive some sort of punishment.
Charles Foehner, a retired doorman is facing four years in prison, despite having no other brushes with the law.Olga Ginzburg for the N.Y. Post
“I said to Tom [Kenniff], If they want me to, I’ll start at the Triborough Bridge and I’ll clean to Grand Central Parkway all the way to the Nassau border. As long as I don’t have to go to jail.”
He calls it a political case. A checkmark for Katz that will allow her to boast about getting guns off the street.
Meanwhile, “They’re ignoring the dangerous people committing crimes every day.”
People like David Mazariegos, who beat Nicola Tanzi to death in October after he kindly held a door open for him in the subway. Despite having two open felony cases, Mazariegos was given taxpayer-funded art “diversion” program for repeat criminals.
Self proclaimed doomsday prepper Charles Foehner admitted that he had a stockpile of weapons (pictured here) and should receive some punishment. But at 67 and no criminal record, he should have avoided jailtime.
Charles Foehner, a 65-year-old building resident, shot and killed his attacker on 82nd Ave and Queens Blvd. on May 31, 2023.Seth Gottfried
Or William Credle, who in 2023 sexually assaulted a 14-year-old but was ordered to undergo mental health treatment, only to go on to allegedly rape a 15-year-old in eerily similar circumstances in November. That case is yet to come to trial, but the examples could easily fill this page.
Even worse, Foehner’s social security benefits will stop while he’s in jail, and his wife of 20 years was just laid off from her job at a publishing company after 12 years. They have an online fundraiser to help defray the cost of his defense, but everything still feels so uncertain.
“We’re just sad and devastated,” Jenny told me. “It’s hard to grasp.”
Indeed, Foehner’s cruel and usual punishment is extremely difficult to wrap one’s head around.
Governor Hochul could pardon him, but Foehner has no hope in that. He does, however, still feel guilt.
Charles Foehner and his wife Jenny snuggle their rescue dog Biscuit who was recently diagnosed with cancer. Charles will be heading to prison to serve an unjust four year sentence.Olga Ginzburg for the N.Y. Post
“Whatever the circumstances are, a guy is dead because of me. Maybe I should have taken the beating [that night], but who knows where the beating stops.”
Let’s be honest, Foehner has been taking a beating from the system since he was arrested in 2023.
This isn’t justice. Sending a man like Foehner to prison is a crime in itself.
To get a sense of what Griffith J. Griffith achieved for Los Angeles, all you have to do is hike up to the summit of Mount Hollywood, the second-highest point in the 4,210-acre urban wilderness park that bears his name.
“I find it a miracle that you look out over the basin and then you turn around and you look over the San Fernando Valley, and there is all of this urban and suburban sprawl, and some way, somehow, in the middle of it, there is this 4,000 acres for all of us,” said Mike Eberts, a professor of mass communications at Glendale Community College and author of a 1996 history book on Griffith Park published for the park’s centennial. “And Col. Griffith made that happen.”
“If there’s a list of people who’ve really made Los Angeles a great place to live, Griffith would be very high on that list,” Eberts, a board member of the Griffith Charitable Trust, continued.
In 1896, Griffith donated a massive piece of land to the city to be used as a public park, which today remains both a key city landmark and one of the largest municipal parks with urban wilderness in the United States. (For context, it is more than four times the size of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.)
The park likely wouldn’t exist today if it weren’t for Griffith’s foresight to set aside the land as green space in the city’s booming early days; he declared it “a place of recreation and rest for the plain people.” But while Griffith’s name is now emblazoned on the park, an observatory and a major boulevard, his legacy is complicated.
Construction of Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, 1934.
Corbis/Getty Images
General view of the Hollywood Sign above Lake Hollywood on April 4, 2025, in Hollywood, Calif.
AaronP/Bauer-Griffin/Getty Images
In 1903, Griffith shot his wife in the face in a jealous rage and spent two years at San Quentin.
“He was a flawed man,” Eberts said, adding, “I like to think of him as someone who rose above his flaws.”
He started working for mining companies as a side gig while still reporting on them (if you’re unfamiliar with journalism, that’s what’s called a conflict of interest) and eventually dropped the writing gig to manage mines full time.
In 1882, he moved to Los Angeles and purchased Rancho Los Feliz, 4,071 acres of a former land grant, all while dabbling in real estate and ranching and generally moving up into the city’s more elite circles.
Col. Griffith J. Griffith was also, notably, not a colonel. While he’d served as a major of riflery practice in the California National Guard, the colonel title was “apparently self-bestowed,” according to Eberts.
Portrait of Griffith J. Griffith circa 1910.
Calisphere/Los Angeles Public Library
In 1887, then-36-year-old Griffith married 23-year-old Mary Agnes Christina (“Tina”) Mesmer, daughter of an elite and wealthy Los Angeles family; “Union of Two Very Wealthy Los Angeles Families,” a headline proclaimed at the time.
Their relationship had developed while Tina was set to receive a large inheritance, something Griffith would have been aware of when the two first met, according to “Enlightened Egomaniac: The Life, Times & Crime of Griffith Jenkins Griffith,” a book by Miguel Llanos.
Griffith donated most of his rancho to the city in December 1896 (the press dubbed it a Christmas gift to Los Angeles) with much pomp and circumstance.
“Recognizing the duty which one who has acquired some little wealth owes to the community in which he has prospered … I am impelled to make an offer, the acceptance of which by yourselves, acting for the people, I believe will be a source of enjoyment and pride to my fellows and add a charm to our beloved city,” Griffith wrote in a letter to the mayor and city council.
At the time, the land “wasn’t really recognized as anything significant,” because it was so far away from downtown Los Angeles, according to Marian Dodge, board member at Friends of Griffith Park. To sweeten the deal, Griffith threw in land along the Los Angeles River, including the water rights.
Back then and in the years since, allegations and rumors have swirled that Griffith had other motives when making his generous donation — perhaps because previous business ventures at the rancho hadn’t panned out as planned, or to stop paying taxes on a huge piece of undevelopable property.
But regardless of motives, the giant parkland was set aside for generations of Angelenos, a slice of wilderness that dwarfs New York City’s Central Park several times over, set right in the middle of what became the nation’s second-largest city.
That massive swath of protected land means a chunk of the Santa Monica Mountains has been left undeveloped for over a century, while in other parts of the mountain range, conservation groups have had to fight to protect small pieces of habitat bit by bit, Dodge said.
“Griffith spoke of ‘taking time by the forelock, err it be too late,’ and so he really did see that this kind of frontier town, which we were when he donated the land in 1896, he envisioned it growing into a great city all around this park,” Eberts said.
Hotel Arcadia in Santa Monica, Calif., 1891.
Calisphere/Huntington Library
Then, amid his peak of local celebrity and reverie, Griffith committed a violent crime. Griffith and Tina were staying at a hotel in Santa Monica with their teenage son when an inebriated Griffith became paranoid and suspicious of Tina, accusing her of infidelity and asking if she was poisoning him (accusations she denied).
As the fight escalated, Griffith asked Tina to kneel, place a hand on a prayer book and answer his questions.
“His (last) question was: ‘Have you always been faithful to your marriage vows?’ I said: ‘As God is my judge, I have.’ As I answered the last question, he shot me,” according to a 1903 statement from Tina.
Tina survived but lost an eye and was disfigured by her injuries. She swiftly moved to divorce Griffith, and the judge granted the divorce in less than five minutes.
The day after the shooting, Griffith went right back to business around Los Angeles, including stops at his downtown office and a luncheon at the Jonathan Club.
When confronted by reporters about his wife’s injuries less than 24 hours prior, Griffith said that “the whole thing was purely accidental” and that Tina’s injuries were more from a fall out of the window than from the shot (Tina had jumped out of the hotel window to escape Griffith after he shot her).
Mug shots of Griffith J. Griffith, April 5, 1905.
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation
Griffith was ultimately found guilty of assault with a deadly weapon and sentenced to two years in San Quentin. When he emerged, he became an outspoken advocate for prison reform. Griffith J. Griffith “tells horrors of prison life” and “wages humanitarian crusade throughout country,” proclaimed one Los Angeles Herald headline in 1908 after Griffith’s release.
He also doubled down on securing his legacy as a wealthy yet generous member of the Los Angeles elite by offering $100,000 to the city to build a new observatory in Griffith Park.
Some city officials balked at taking more money from a man convicted of such a crime, and the efforts were slowed by litigation and debate for years. “The city still wanted his land, they still wanted his money, but they’re keeping him a little at arm’s length,” Eberts said.
Ultimately, Griffith left money to the city in his will for the construction of what became the Griffith Observatory and the nearby Greek Theatre, both of which opened in the 1930s, over a decade after Griffith’s death.
Helicopter point of view of Griffith Park Observatory in Los Angeles.
Getty Images/iStockphoto
Hiking path leading up to Griffith Observatory, with several hikers in the distance and trees on the edge of the path.
Lena Wagner/Getty Images
Griffith’s large donations appear to have memorialized him as a generous benefactor for the city, mostly overshadowing his violent crime.
In 1996, as part of Griffith Park’s centennial anniversary celebrations, a 14-foot bronze statue of Griffith was erected near the park entrance at the corner of Los Feliz Boulevard and Crystal Springs Drive.
The statue came after members of the Griffith Charitable Trust realized that “there was no dedication to the man who’d given the city this extraordinary gift,” according to nonprofit Friends of Griffith Park.
So the controversial figure now looms large over a busy intersection just outside the park, with a quote from Griffith that reads, “Public parks are a safety valve of great cities and should be made accessible and attractive where neither race, creed nor color could be excluded.”
The quote is attributed to Colonel Griffith, permanently cementing Griffith’s long con in stone.
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As you see from this California & especially LA has always been a weird, violent and fun place to live.
