ST. PAUL, Minn. — Gov. Tim Walz during the vice presidential debate on Tuesday night revealed that his teenage son Gus had witnessed a shooting at a community center in St. Paul last year.
“Look, I got a 17-year-old and he witnessed a shooting at a community center playing volleyball. Those things don’t leave you,” Tim Walz said.
He was referencing a shooting that happened in January 2023 at the Jimmy Lee Rec Center, when an employee shot a 16-year-old boy in the head. Gus Walz was one of roughly 100 young people who were at the community center when the shooting happened, according to a Facebook post by his coach, David Albornoz.
Albornoz wrote the post soon after Gus Walz’s viral moment of cheering on his father at the Democratic National Convention. In it, Albornoz writes about the teenager’s contagious love for volleyball, and how he was “keeping everyone safe and calm, looking after the kids in the gym with us as I rushed out,” after the shooting.
The rec center employee, Exavir Dwayne Binford Jr., pleaded guilty to first-degree assault for the shooting of the 16-year-old and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
The criminal complaint states that the rec center was in lockdown due to a fight between a number of girls. A girl who was inside the building was allowed to let her cousin inside, which upset Binford, because “another employee undermined his authority,” documents say. He repeatedly called the girl a “b****,” and the 16-year-old victim got involved.
Binford then showed the two he was carrying a gun, and the 16-year-old and the girl started punching him. Binford then backed up, pulled out the gun, and shot the 16-year-old in the head, charges said.
Tim Walz mentioned the rec center shooting during a line of questioning about gun violence in the United States.
“I didn’t know that your 17-year-old witnessed the shooting. And I’m sorry about that. And I hope, Christ, have mercy. It is awful,” Sen. JD Vance said to Tim Walz afterward.
