PILLAR 03 OF 05 Agenda Minnesota · The Indictment Series
The Charge — Documented. Bipartisan. Sixty Years Running.
295,000 veterans. 3,125 schools. 60 years. No program connecting them. Both parties. Same result. Veterans underemployed. Children unprotected.
AUGUST 27, 2025 · MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA
Annunciation Catholic Church — Back-to-School Mass
A gunman opened fire during a back-to-school Mass attended by students and families. Two children — aged 8 and 10 — were killed. Seventeen others were wounded. The most lethal school-related shooting in Minnesota history. It happened while 295,000 Minnesota veterans were underemployed at a rate above the civilian average. Nobody had connected those two facts. Not one administration. Not one party. Not in sixty years.
Minnesota has approximately 295,000 veterans — people trained in perimeter security, threat assessment, emergency response, and command-structure discipline. Skills that take years and enormous federal investment to develop. Skills that no civilian training program replicates in equivalent time.

Minnesota has 3,125 public schools — full of children whose parents trust the state to keep them safe. Schools that have no statewide veteran protection program. No trained protector at the door. No career pathway connecting the people who have the skills to the places that need them.

Both facts have existed for sixty years. Both parties governed during those sixty years. Nobody built the bridge.
295K
Minnesota veterans — trained, ready, underemployed
3,125
Minnesota public schools — none with a statewide veteran protection program
4.5%
Veteran unemployment rate — above the 3.1% non-veteran rate
2
Children killed at Annunciation, Minneapolis — August 27, 2025
60
Years both parties governed Minnesota without connecting these two facts
ZERO
Statewide veteran-to-schools protection programs created — ever
You can't fix a problem
with the same mind
that created it.
School Shootings in Minnesota — The Record
1960–2000 (40 years) ~3 recorded
2000–2025 (25 years) 30+
First weeks of school — 2023 3 threats
First weeks of school — 2024 14 threats
August 27, 2025 — Annunciation 2 children killed
Sources: Education Week · National School Threat Database · Sandy Hook Promise Action Fund
Minnesota Legislature Response — The Question
How many bills were entered to protect or harden Minnesota schools since the shootings started escalating?
The Minnesota Legislature has introduced various school safety measures over the years. Some passed. Most did not. Not one created a statewide veteran-staffed protection program. Not one connected the 295,000 trained veterans sitting in Minnesota to the 3,125 schools that needed them.
The bills multiplied.
The shootings multiplied.
The veteran unemployment rate stayed above the civilian average.
The connection was never made.
"Minnesota has 295,000 veterans and 3,125 schools. There is no good reason those two facts are not already connected. That changes on day one."
Brad Kohler · Candidate for Governor of Minnesota · 2026
↓ How both parties failed both groups — and what ends it
The verdict — two problems. One solution. Zero action for sixty years.
The math was always there.
The bridge was never built.
Both parties held the hammer.
These are not new problems. The veteran population in Minnesota has been documented for decades. The school safety gap has been documented for decades. The two facts sitting side by side — 295,000 trained veterans, 3,125 unprotected schools — have been visible to every governor and every legislature since the Vietnam era. Not one administration of either party built the connection.
295,000
Minnesota veterans — Census ACS 2022 / MDVA FY2024
Trained in perimeter security. Threat assessment. Emergency response. Command-structure discipline under pressure. The federal government spent years and enormous resources developing these skills. Minnesota has 295,000 people who carry them — and no career pathway that puts those skills to work protecting children.
3,125
Minnesota public schools — NCES 2024–2025
Operating in a documented and worsening threat environment. School threat incidents rose from 3 in the first weeks of 2023 to 14 in the same period in 2024. The Annunciation shooting on August 27, 2025 was the most lethal school-related event in Minnesota history. Every one of these schools currently operates without a trained veteran protector.
For 60 years these two facts sat side by side.
Nobody built the bridge.
What both parties did for veterans
Veteran unemployment above civilian rateMinnesota veteran unemployment: 4.5% vs. 3.1% non-veteran (Census ACS 2022). Both parties governed during every year of that gap.
No structured career pathway for military skillsVeterans with combat security training, perimeter experience, and command discipline have no direct civilian career track that credits those specific capabilities at full value.
No statewide MSPC-equivalent program createdNot by Republicans. Not by Democrats. Not once in sixty years of combined governance at the state and federal level.
What both parties did for school safety
School threat incidents rising annuallyNational School Threat Database: Minnesota recorded 14 school threats in the first weeks of the 2024 school year — up from 3 in the same period in 2023. No statewide veteran protector program existed during any of it.
The SVPP does not fund security officer positionsThe federal School Violence Prevention Program — which both parties have funded — explicitly excludes SRO and security officer positions. The funding existed. The will to connect it to veterans did not.
August 27, 2025 — Annunciation, MinneapolisTwo children killed. Seventeen wounded. The most lethal school-related shooting in Minnesota history. It happened after sixty years of both parties governing the state.
295,000 trained veterans.
3,125 unprotected schools.
Sixty years. Both parties. Nobody connected them.
The resolution — one decision. Two problems solved.
The bridge gets built.
Year one. 2027.
The Minnesota School Protection Corps Act is one piece of legislation that solves two documented problems simultaneously — without choosing between them and without robbing one to fund the other. It was not complicated to design. The complication was always the absence of a governor willing to sign it.
295K
Minnesota veterans — trained, ready, underemployed
MEETS
3,125
Minnesota public schools — unprotected
=
3,775
Career positions. Pension protected. Purpose restored.
3,125
School protection specialists — one per school
650
District coordinators — two per district
<1%
Of state general fund — full program cost
$50M
Year one pilot — 300 veterans in 20 districts
Year 3
Full statewide deployment — all 3,125 schools
Pension
Protected — career positions, not contracts
What Kohler does — Year one, 2027 MSPC ACT
→
MSPC Act passes with bipartisan supportSchool safety and veterans employment have cross-partisan appeal. Republican legislators support law enforcement expansion and veterans programs. DFL legislators support school safety investment and structured career pathways. The legislation passes.
→
300 veterans hired in 20 pilot districts — Year oneUrban, suburban, and rural districts. Federal COPS Hiring Program grants seed the first hires at 75% of salary for three years. The pilot tests the certification pathway, the funding mechanics, and the community response before full statewide commitment.
→
MSPC-specific certification track created with POST BoardBuilt on MnSCU infrastructure that already trains 80% of Minnesota's police officers. Veterans with military security experience receive accelerated credentialing. The track credits what they already know.
→
Every school protected. Every veteran with a career.By Year Three, 3,775 pension-protected career positions fill all 3,125 Minnesota public schools. A veteran who served this country comes home to a career protecting the children of the community they grew up in.
You can't fix a problem with the same mind that created it.
For 60 years Minnesota has elected the same problem — Democrats and Republicans alike.
During those 60 years, 295,000 veterans came home underemployed while 3,125 schools sat unprotected. The math connecting those two facts was always visible. The will to act on it was never there. Not from the left. Not from the right. The same minds. The same result.
That's unacceptable.
While veterans came home to unemployment
and children died in Minnesota schools —
is that the Minnesota you want?
Read the Full Case → Back to the Road Map
Sources: MDVA FY2024 · Census ACS 2022 · NCES 2024–2025 · National School Threat Database · DOJ COPS HHP FY2025 · Education Week August 2025 · Sandy Hook Promise Action Fund · Minnesota POST Board
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