MINOT, N.D. — A 53-year-old North Dakota man has been sentenced for biting off a co-worker’s ear during a fight.

Authorities say Gary Eiland and the other man were fighting over where to place merchandise at a Minot lumber and hardware store in September 2015 when Eiland bit off 80 percent of the other man’s ear. Doctors weren’t able to reattach it.

Eiland said he was acting in self-defense, but he pleaded guilty to aggravated assault.

The Minot Daily News reports that he was sentenced Monday to time served of two days and ordered to spend three years on supervised probation. He also was ordered to pay nearly $3,000 in restitution and $1,100 in court costs.

The Stillwater prison, on lockdown since a fight broke out among inmates in the A-West housing unit on Saturday, is returning to normal operation, prison officials said Tuesday afternoon.

Minnesota Department of Corrections officials are still investigating the cause of the brawl at the Minnesota Correctional Facility-Stillwater, said spokeswoman Sarah Fitzgerald. No one has been charged in connection with the fight, she said.

After the brawl broke out, the prison, which is in Bayport, was locked down and inmates were required to stay in their cells instead of going to work in the prison or participating in other programs, Fitzgerald said.

By Tuesday afternoon, only the offenders in the A-West housing unit remained on lockdown. “This means they will still not go out to programming or work,” she said. “All the other offenders will return to normal work and programming.”

Fitzgerald said the lockdown in the housing unit will continue until the investigation into the fight is done.

There are seven housing units inside the facility and one outside housing unit; the outside housing unit is the prison’s minimum-security unit, Fitzgerald said.

A man accused of following a young woman off the light rail in St. Paul in spring and threatening to rape her has been found incompetent to stand trial.

That means the state’s criminal case against Andrew Wardell King, 56, will be suspended as he heads toward civil commitment, according to a spokesman for the Ramsey County attorney’s office.

King was charged in March with one count of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct for his alleged behavior toward a woman at the light-rail platform at Fifth and Sibley streets in St. Paul that month.

The 20-year-old woman told police she had been sketching people on the platform when she started talking with King, charges say.

The two reportedly boarded the light rail and continued talking as she sketched him. At some point, King became “verbally aggressive,” and the woman decided to leave the train, she told police, according to his criminal complaint.

King, of South St. Paul, followed her and pushed her up against a wall before groping her, “forcefully” kissing her and threatening to sexually assault her, court documents say.

When questioned by officers, King said the woman had told him that she “had fantasies” about being sexually assaulted and that he was worried she might end up reporting his conduct as unwanted, which is why he also called 911, the complaint said.

King made the 911 call 14 minutes after the incident.

A Ramsey County district judge determined King was not mentally fit for trial earlier this month. It’s expected that he will now be civilly committed. His competency will be evaluated on an ongoing basis and reported to the courts. His criminal case will proceed if and when he is deemed mentally sound to answer to the charges.

The Minnesota State Patrol has beefed up its crime-sniffing abilities, adding three new K-9s to the force.

The three new dogs — Keno, King and Remi — finished 10 weeks of training to detect drugs before joining their handlers for another five weeks of training.

The new dogs — two Belgian Malinois and one German shorthair — are part of an effort to combat the growing drug epidemic, the State Patrol said when announcing the new dog fleet Monday.

“With drug overdoses on the rise in Minnesota, these dogs will help get drugs, including methamphetamine and heroin, off our streets and out of our communities,” said Lt. Gov. Tina Smith in a statement. “In Minnesota, we understand that providing law enforcement with the tools they need is only part of a successful strategy to address substance abuse. We also are committed to expanding treatment and recovery efforts, which will help us turn the tide on this public health crisis.”

Through June this year, the state has seized 116 pounds of methamphetamine, 1,150 pounds of marijuana, 17.5 pounds of cocaine and 13.5 pounds of heroin, according to a statement from the state Department of Public Safety. Five of those searches took place in schools; 353 were in vehicles.

A 16-year-old is accused of shooting a gas station clerk during a robbery in St. Paul last weekend, charges say.

Jason Lee Sam III was charged Tuesday with several criminal counts in connection with the incident, including first-degree assault and first-degree aggravated robbery, according to the juvenile petition filed against him Tuesday in Ramsey County District Court.

The teen wore a mask as he pointed a gun at the gas station employee inside the SuperDay Gas Station on the corner of West Seventh and Davern streets in St. Paul on Sunday evening, court records say.

When he demanded money from the clerk, the employee, fearing for his life, attempted to push Sam away from him and ran, according to statements the clerk gave police, the complaint said.

That’s when Sam fired the gun, court documents say. The employee suffered injuries to his stomach but was in stable condition.

The man who authorities say drove Sam away from the scene, Josmar Bonfil Najera, faces charges as well.

Najera, 18, is charged with two counts of aiding an offender to avoid arrest, court documents say.

A man who came in the gas station Sunday found the employee lying on the floor and called 911.

Paramedics took the clerk to Regions Hospital, where he underwent surgery.

Witnesses provided a description of a possible suspect vehicle, and video from the area showed a male wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt, face mask and white T-shirt enter the store with a gun, police said. Nothing was taken from the gas station.

A short time after the shooting, officers stopped a vehicle about a mile from the gas station in the 1200 block of Homer Street that matched the description. Najera was driving the vehicle. Sam was sitting in the back seat, court documents say.

Both were arrested.

A silver magazine clip was reportedly found in Sam’s sock. When asked where the gun was, he said, “I plead the fifth,” according to the criminal complaint.

Though he initially denied any knowledge of the robbery or the shooting, Najera later admitted to police to driving Sam away from the scene and stopping so that Sam could throw away his clothes, court documents say.

Sam declined to say anything further to police.

A Shakopee man has been charged with driving the wrong way while intoxicated and fatally crashing into an Iowa woman who had just attended a weekend concert in St. Paul.

According to the Rice County attorney’s office, Brandon Patrick Dellwo, 29, has been charged with criminal vehicular homicide in the collision early Sunday on Minnesota 19 near Northfield. Dellow was allegedly intoxicated with a blood-alcohol content of nearly 0.27, more than three times the legal limit of 0.08.

According to the Minnesota State Patrol, Dellwo was driving the wrong way shortly after midnight when his Lincoln Navigator collided head-on with a Volkswagen EOS driven by Kacy Elizabeth Merseal, 29, of Des Moines, Iowa.

Merseal was airlifted to Hennepin County Medical Center, where she died.

A passenger in her car, Tanya Marie Von Weine, 30, of Story City, Iowa, suffered injuries that weren’t considered life-threatening. She was treated at Northfield Hospital.

According to the Des Moines Register, the two college friends had attended Saturday night’s Bruno Mars concert at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul. They were driving to stay with a friend at the time of the collision on Highway 19 just west of Interstate 35.

Merseal was a recent graduate of Drake University’s law school in Des Moines and was engaged to be married.

Dellwo, who has an extensive history of alcohol- and traffic-related offenses, suffered minor injuries in the crash. He was charged Monday in Rice County District Court, according to the Faribault Daily News.

A convicted pedophile from Halstad in northwest Minnesota has been caught near the Mexican border after being missing for more than a month.

Jonah James Hawkins, 26, of Halstad was taken into custody in Starr County, on Texas’ southern tip, according to a news release from the Minnesota Department of Corrections. He had been a fugitive since June 27, when he absconded from supervised release, the DOC said.

The sex offender, who was convicted of sexual contact with a 3-year-old in Cass County, N.D.,  was last seen leaving his residence in Halstad, and was finally located and taken into custody on Friday.

Hawkins was released from prison on April 22, 2015, to intensive supervised release.

Hawkins is a Level 3 predatory sex offender, making him as the most likely to reoffend.

Former Minneapolis police chief Janee Harteau said in an interview aired Wednesday that she did everything she could to rush home from a hiking trip in Colorado last month after one of her officers killed an Australian woman who had called 911 to report a possible sexual assault.

But Harteau told Minnesota Public Radio, in her first media interview since her resignation, that she didn’t realize the depth of the anger ignited by the July 15 shooting of Justine Damond — or the political fallout to come. She said it took her two flights and a three-hour car ride to get home nearly four days after the shooting. Soon after Harteau got back, Mayor Betsy Hodges asked her to resign, saying she had lost confidence in her.

“I was in communication with my team, and I’m the one that requested the BCA (Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension) be activated. And we know from history that things take time,” Harteau told MPR. “At no time did anybody say, ‘This is bad. You need to come back, chief.’”

Harteau said she’s aware of how politics shape decisions at City Hall, and that Hodges is facing a tough re-election campaign, but declined to criticize the mayor.

Harteau, 53, became the city’s first woman and first openly gay police chief in 2012. One of her main initiatives was MPD 2.0, an umbrella term for her vision for policing, which included a focus on accountability and transparency. But she said it was tough to rank all the things she counts as accomplishments.

“People ask me: ‘What are you the most proud of?’ But, it’s almost too much to really encapsulate. But my goal is, or was from the beginning, when I walked the door is to leave it better than when I came in,” she said. “I think I have.”

Harteau said she will not miss the pressures of the job, which took a toll on her family life and contributed to the end of her marriage to her longtime partner, Holly Keegel. Harteau remarried in 2016, but chose not to make that public at the time. She’s said she’s now looking forward to some anonymity and time with her family.

But Harteau, who left the department after 30 years of service, also said she wants to remain involved with law enforcement and that she has received job offers from other departments, including Dallas.

Divina Marie Sulentich told police that after her aunt threatened to tell others about her illegal drug use, she grabbed the 60-year-old woman and shook her.

During a struggle, she said, the two fell onto a bed, where she got on top her aunt and “squeezed” her neck until she went limp, according to court documents filed in Dakota County District Court.

On Wednesday, prosecutors charged Divina Sulentich of West St. Paul with second-degree murder with intent for the July death of her aunt, Mary Susan Sulentich, also of West St. Paul.

A warrant was issued for her arrest Wednesday, court records show.

According to a criminal complaint:

Sulentich was found dead at her apartment July 12 by someone sent to check on her. She was lying on her back on a bed, and the cause of death was not immediately apparent.

The witness who found Sulentich’s body told police that Sulentich’s niece had been living with her since April to help her after knee surgery.

West St. Paul police officers had been called to the same apartment about 10:30 p.m. four days earlier, when Mary Sulentich reported she was having an argument with her niece, Divina Sulentich.

During an interview with police, Divina Sulentich said that after officers left the apartment on July 8, she went to the community room in the apartment building but later returned. She said she saw her aunt holding a cell phone and threatening to tell others about the defendant’s illegal purchases of Vicodin, including who she was buying it from.

Divina Sulentich said she took the cell phone from her aunt and broke it in half. She said she then grabbed and shook her aunt, and as they struggled they eventually ended up on the victim’s bed. Sulentich said she was on top of her aunt and squeezed her neck until she went limp.

She told police she stayed in the apartment all day July 9, contemplating what she should do before leaving in her aunt’s car July 10 without reporting her death.

The medical examiner determined she had fractured thyroid cartilages on both sides of her neck, injuries that are consistent with strangulation.

A St. Paul City Council member said Wednesday he will ask other Council members to hold off on appointing new commissioners to a re-constituted police review board until problems are straightened out.

Dan Bostrom, a retired St. Paul police officer, joined the St. Paul police union at a press conference at City Hall Wednesday afternoon.

“What we’ve seen with this new board and the new process that’s been reconfigured and the inconsistencies with this, I hate to say it, but it seems to me like this is the way you might start if you were in junior high school … and you were going to form your first student council, the way this unfolded,” Bostrom said.

In December, the City Council voted to increase the number of commissioners from seven to nine and to remove the two officers from the panel.

The ordinance change, which Bostrom voted against, moved the commission’s supervision and administration from the police department to the St. Paul Human Rights and Equal Economic Opportunity Department (HREEO) in February.

City emails show concerns about the reconstituted commission came to a head in June. The leader of the St. Paul police internal affairs’ unit, Senior Cmdr. Rob Thomasser, emailed the police chief then and told him he believed “consequential errors are being made.”

The mayor’s office stepped in and instructed the commission to not meet in July, so HREEO could be sure that the next meeting ran smoothly, and last week’s meeting did, said Deputy Mayor Kristin Beckmann.

Department leaders also have been meeting about other aspects of the process.

Dave Titus, president of the St. Paul Police Federation, wrote to City Council members Wednesday morning and asked them to table the appointment of eight new commissioners, brought forward by Mayor Chris Coleman, to the review board.

Bostrom said he supports laying over the issue for a week or two.

“The Federation supports and believes the citizens who file — and the officers who respond to — complaints deserve a system that operates with fairness and integrity,” Titus said Wednesday afternoon. “Mayor Coleman’s reconstructed system is a disaster.”

On Tuesday, Coleman responded to a comment from Titus about the commission and said, “It’s unfortunate that the Federation president continues to try to divide our community at a time where we need to come together,” which Titus brought up at Wednesday’s press conference.

“We disagree but if I were a politician and the captain of this mess, I would probably deflect and point my finger elsewhere also,” Titus said.

A western Wisconsin man already on probation for felony stalking has been charged again with false imprisonment of an ex-girlfriend.

Pierce County prosecutors charged Steven L. Jacobs, 38, on Monday with one count of felony false imprisonment and misdemeanor disorderly conduct and intimidation of a victim.

The Prescott man was serving three years on probation after a September 2015 sentence in St. Croix County, where he was convicted of felony stalking and false imprisonment. The sentence called for Jacobs to go to prison for two years if he violated his terms of probation.

According to a criminal complaint:

Prescott police were called at 7:31 a.m. Sunday to a disturbance in the 1400 block of Walnut Street. A woman reported Jacobs, her ex-boyfriend, had entered her house, took her cellphone and physically restrained her from leaving.

Jacobs had entered the woman’s house at about 4:30 a.m. and crawled into her bed, she told police. She had forbidden him from coming to the house, the woman told police.

The woman said she told Jacobs to leave, to which he replied “No, I just want to talk to you. … You always tell me no.”

The woman later tried to get out of the house, but Jacobs — described by the woman as bigger than her, with a bad temper — stepped between her and the door, grabbing her tightly and trying to kiss her.

Jacobs followed her as she went outside to a shed, where he trapped her for a time, the woman told police. Later, while in the garage, she tried getting the phone back but Jacobs pocketed it.

Then the woman heard a neighbor, and Jacobs grabbed her, warning her not to try to attract the neighbor’s attention. But she yelled for the neighbor to call 911.

That, she said, was when Jacobs threw her keys on the ground and ran for his truck. She said she pursued him because he still had her phone. That led to a struggle and Jacobs threw it to the ground before speeding away from her house.

Police later spoke with the neighbor, who said the victim came to her house after the incident with her phone’s speaker activated. The neighbor said she heard Jacobs tell the victim not to call the police.

Jacobs phoned police at 9:45 a.m. Sunday and arranged to be interviewed.

The incident bore similarities to a 2014 case in North Hudson when he showed up unexpectedly at a different woman’s house. There, he sexually groped the woman, took her cellphone and barricaded her in the house until she made it to a laptop and got word to her mother via Facebook, who alerted police.

University of Minnesota researchers have discovered that most sex buyers in the state are married, white men with disposable income.

The researchers interviewed more than 150 law enforcement officers, prosecutors and social service employees for the study, Minnesota Public Radio reported.

The study found that the men tend to be between 30 and 50 years old. They also tend to travel between 30 and 60 miles in order to remain anonymous. Most men purchase sex during the work day through the internet.

“People purchasing sex are part of the fabric of our state,” said Lauren Martin, lead author of the study. “They’re community leaders, they’re sometimes police officers or other people in authority. This is not a group of people who are distinct from mainstream society.”

The study was funded by the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota as part of its Minnesota Girls Are Not For Sale campaign.

“This study is key to creating targeted strategies to disrupt the sex-trafficking market, end the demand and decrease gender-based violence,” said Mary Beth Hanson, the foundation’s vice president of external relations.

Researchers said law enforcement has likely identified less than 1 percent of people who’ve purchased sex in the state.

Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension Superintendent Drew Evans said law enforcement hope to disrupt trafficking rings.

“But more importantly, we need to work to drive down the demand. If the demand is not there, there will be no marketplace for the supply,” Evans said.

The bureau added eight agents last year to focus on human trafficking and child sex exploitation. It now has almost 20 agents stationed around the state.

Minnesota changed its law a couple years ago to treat trafficked individuals as victims, not criminals. The state is also spending $13 million to improve services to help sex trafficking victims, such as providing more than 40 beds across the state for sexually exploited youth.

An Anoka man who asked his ex-wife “Any last words?” before attempting to shoot her to death with a shotgun last fall has been ordered to serve 20 years in prison.

In May, John Bruce Steurer, 48, was convicted of second-degree attempted murder in connection with the November shooting, which took place at the woman’s North St. Paul workplace.

A Ramsey County jury found him guilty of that charge as well as four aggravating factors: violating a harassment restraining order, both punching the victim and beating her with a gun in the face after shooting her, and showing no remorse.

His public defender could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday.

Ramsey County District Judge Elena Ostby said additional evidence shows Steurer likely planned the crime ahead of time.

The attack came on Nov. 23, just 14 days after Steurer and his ex-wife, Deanna Lahr, had finalized their divorce, according to the criminal complaint filed in the case.

Steurer shot Lahr at her office, causing her to fall down some stairs. He tried to shoot her again, but she fought him and the 20-gauge shotgun malfunctioned, according to the complaint. She eventually escaped inside the building and locked the doors.

Later, Steurer called Lahr and left a voicemail: “I’m sorry I had to do that to you. I can’t have you being with another guy so that’s what I had to do. Bye.”

Steurer was arrested at a park in Coon Rapids after shooting himself three times in the face in an attempt to kill himself during a standoff with police.

Lahr testified at Wednesday’s sentencing that the attack caused physical injuries — a collapsed lung, arthritis, scarring and a limp that’s most likely permanent — as well as emotional and mental trauma.

“Fireworks used to be my favorite thing. Now, because of the sound, they trigger anxiety,” Lahr said. “What he has done has not just damaged me … but so many others. All I want is to feel safe and be free and have a chance to be happy.”

Steurer said little at the hearing. Ostby criticized him for his lack of remorse and for blaming some of his actions on a learning disability.

GRAND MARAIS, Minn. — Marcus Lee Roberts was a hard-working father of five who cared deeply for his family and spent every spare dollar helping others, those closest to him told a judge Wednesday.

Nearly two years after the 35-year-old Twin Cities native was fatally shot while working at a holiday party at a popular North Shore resort, his family was left with far more questions than answers.

“Why?” asked grandmother Ardythe Smith. “Why did this happen to Marcus? My grandson was so unsuspecting. In an instant, he’d never see his children again, and his children would never see their father again.”

Roberts’ extended family — many of them traveling from the Twin Cities and southwestern Minnesota — filled a Cook County courtroom seeking justice for their loved one. Many wore T-shirts emblazoned with Roberts’ name and photo, along with the words “September 4th 1980 — Forever.”

They watched as his killer — 63-year-old Kirk Lee Bigby of Finland — was sentenced to a maximum guideline term of 12½ years in prison after an emotional, nearly two-hour hearing before District Judge Eric Hylden.

“It’s changed my view of the world as a safe and fair place,” Roberts’ sister, Krista Thunder, told the judge before the sentence was handed down. “It’s not safe and it’s not fair.”

Bigby, for his part, had no satisfying answers for the family. While maintaining that Roberts was the initial aggressor in the incident, Bigby acknowledged that he was highly intoxicated at the party and should not have been carrying a firearm.

“I’m sorry it happened,” he told the court. “I caused a lot of people a lot of pain.”

Roberts, of Bloomington, and his youngest brother, Kenny, were providing entertainment for a casino-themed employee party at Bluefin Bay in Tofte when he was shot by Bigby, a resort worker, in the early morning hours of Dec. 9, 2015.

Bigby claims to have almost no memory of the incident, though he said he remembers Roberts bumping into him so hard that it knocked the hat off his head. Witness accounts also were limited, but police said one reported seeing Bigby “just pull out a gun and shoot this guy” without any apparent provocation.

Despite his intoxication — about three times the legal limit for driving — Bigby and his defense attorneys asserted that he felt as though he was in danger at the time. He initially brought a self-defense claim, but waived that right and averted a jury trial in pleading guilty to an unintentional second-degree murder charge in May.

“I was in fear for my life. It was that simple,” Bigby said Wednesday. “I’m not a violent man. I wasn’t looking for trouble that night.”

Roberts’ family and prosecutors, however, disputed his contention — saying Roberts had no history of violence and that there was no evidence of a violent confrontation.

“I looked up to him,” Thunder said. “He was a big guy and he had a big heart. He taught me everything I know; he was my best friend.”

The family spoke of the struggle to move on without Roberts and the impact his death has had on his children and his young nephews and nieces.

“My children have been absolutely devastated by the death of their father,” said Jessica Jensen, the mother of Roberts’ two youngest kids. “They wake up with nightmares in the middle of the night.”

Roberts’ mother, Elaine Pierce, described the horror of waking up to a phone call notifying her that her oldest child died in the arms of his youngest brother after a senseless shooting.

“There is no way to describe this pain and emptiness,” she told the judge. “I don’t know if there will ever be another normal again.”

The 150-month prison sentence was the maximum term available under a plea agreement reached between Bigby and the Cook County Attorney’s Office. While Roberts’ family expressed belief that the sentence was too lenient, Bigby and defense attorney Dave Risk sought the minimum sentence of 128 months.

Bigby’s sister, Pamela Wilson, said after the hearing that she had “great sympathy” for Roberts’ family. But Wilson said she believed her brother’s defense was “severely hampered” not only by his intoxication but by “grossly inadequate” investigations by police and a medical examiner.

“There were no winners today,” Wilson said. “This has been a tragic situation. While we will never know what happened that evening, I know my brother feared for his life.”

While some members of Roberts’ family used terms such as “evil man” to describe the defendant, they also expressed a desire to forgive and pray for him.

Debra Zollner, the girlfriend of Roberts’ father, said no amount of prison time would bring their loved one back.

“We can’t hug him. We can’t call him,” she said. “For that, there is not enough time.”

Shortly after a Mahtomedi man was arrested on suspicion of trafficking his former girlfriend for sex, he called the woman he’s accused of victimizing and pleaded with her to defend him against the allegations, authorities say

Shaun Michael Maubach, 32, reportedly made the call while in custody in Washington County in early July. He repeatedly asked the woman to be “in his corner” and tried to persuade her not to follow through on her plans to seek an order for protection against him, according to court documents.

A year earlier, authorities say he made plans to traffic her for sex out of a residence the two shared in St. Paul. Those allegations are outlined in a criminal complaint filed against Maubach Wednesday in Ramsey County District Court.

He is charged with one felony count of engaging in sex trafficking of an individual.

Authorities were tipped to his conduct in the case while investigating his involvement in the sex trafficking of a 27-year-old woman in Washington County, according to the Ramsey County criminal complaint.

He faces two felony counts related to sex-trafficking in that case and is set to defend himself at trial in late October, court records say.

After learning of his alleged conduct in St. Paul, investigators reached out to his former girlfriend.

The 28-year-old told law enforcement that she and Maubach had been dating for some time before he suggested in the summer of 2016 that she make extra money by selling herself for sex, according to the criminal complaint

He made her an online profile and set up an account to advertise her services on Backpage.com, court documents say. Before long, the woman told investigators she was engaging in sexual activity with one or two customers a day.

She told police that the money she earned went toward bills and to support Maubach’s “lifestyle and possessions,” the complaint said. She also told authorities Maubach became verbally and physically abusive.

While in custody for his charges in Washington County, Maubach reportedly called his former girlfriend to seek help with his case. When she told him she was considering obtaining an order for protection against him, he allegedly urged her against it.

“Do you know how bad that’s going to make me look as a person?” he told her, according to the complaint.

He also allegedly told her, “I was very mean to you, and I know I was.”

No attorney was listed for Maubach on his Ramsey County charges in court records.

His criminal history includes convictions for receiving profits from prostitution, second and third-degree burglary, credit-card fraud, second-degree assault and fifth-degree drug possession.

There are also felony warrants for his arrest out of Kansas and Washington, the criminal complaint said.

Police suspect they have a serial robber on their hands after another St. Paul bank was targeted Wednesday, the third that may be connected to the same suspect.

Investigators have been looking into a connection between two St. Paul bank robberies that occurred in July and now are adding Wednesday’s case to their list, said Steve Linders, a St. Paul police spokesman, on Thursday.

In each of the cases, the suspect said he had a gun, though a weapon was not seen, “so beyond the bank robberies we’re looking at potentially dangerous situations for the people who work at the banks, for the people who are customers and people in the area,” Linders said. “It also could potentially put our officers in a dangerous position. We need to find this guy and take him off the streets so he doesn’t hurt someone.”

On Wednesday about 1:50 p.m., a man went into the Anchor Bank at 1570 Concordia Ave. He was wearing all red and sunglasses, took a note out of a pants pocket and handed it to a teller, Linders said. The note said, “This is a robbery” and indicated he had a gun.

After getting money from several tellers, the man stuffed the cash into his pockets and shirt sleeve, Linders said. He walked out the door and was not found.

Police suspect the same man robbed the BMO Harris Bank at 522 S. Snelling Ave. on July 25 and the TCF Bank at 459 N. Lexington Pkwy on July 11.

The suspect is described as a black man, 20 to 30 years old, 6 feet tall, with a medium to muscular build, and facial hair on his chin. Anyone with information is asked to call police at 651-266-5650.

There was another bank robbery at the same TCF location Saturday about 11 a.m., but police do not believe it’s connected, Linders said.

Forest Lake residents, check your docks.

If yours has gone missing, the Washington County sheriff’s office wants to hear from you.

Sheriff Dan Starry says a 6-foot dock has been found submerged on the southwest side of Forest Lake’s Second Lake, about 50 yards from shore. The dock, of an unknown color, is upside down with its wheels up. It has been marked with a red buoy.

A passing boater reported the dock as a water hazard about 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, Starry said.

The sheriff’s office tried to find the owner of the dock using Facebook, but had not been successful as of Thursday afternoon, he said.

“We’re not sure how it got there,” Starry said. “The owners in the area don’t seem to know where it came from.”

Starry said the sheriff’s water patrol has found boats and canoes that have floated away and has been able to reunite them with their owners through registration numbers.

The dock has no registration number of name on it, he said.

DULUTH, Minn. – St. Louis County District Judge Shaun Floerke said he spent one day this week thinking about Theresa Marie Katzmark, the 49-year-old registered nurse who admitted she was under the influence of sleeping medication when she fatally struck a pedestrian along Duluth’s London Road in April.

The judge said he spent another day thinking about Donna Ruth Estrem, the 62-year-old good Samaritan killed in an instant when she stopped to check on Katzmark after leaving a shift at her job as a caregiver for seniors.

Floerke struggled Thursday as he was confronted with deciding whether to send Katzmark — someone with no criminal history — to prison or give her a chance on probation.

“You’re a mom who’s killed a mom,” the judge told her. “You’re a caregiver who’s killed a caregiver.”

After considering arguments and impact statements from both sides at an emotional sentencing hearing, Floerke said he found a prison term appropriate.

The judge gave Katzmark a guideline, four-year prison sentence. The Superior, Wis., woman was placed in handcuffs and led from the courtroom at the end of the hearing as family members wept from the gallery behind.

“I honestly don’t know what this does in the universe of things,” Floerke told her, “but it makes sense to me. It brings harm to you, but you brought harm to Ms. Estrem and her family.”

Katzmark pleaded guilty in June to a felony charge of criminal vehicular homicide.

She admitted she had taken Ambien and that the side effects of the sedative contributed to the April 4 crash. Katzmark’s Mercury Mountaineer had been the subject of numerous 911 calls before it left London Road near 40th Avenue East, in front of Ecumen Lakeshore.

Katzmark testified that after briefly talking with Estrem — a pedestrian who came to check on her — she inadvertently put the vehicle in drive and accelerated forward into the victim. Estrem was thrown against an electrical box at the intersection and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Estrem’s son, Enrique Giner III, showed the court a cellphone — now smashed — that had been in his mother’s back pocket when she was struck.

“She took the most wonderful person I’ve ever met in my life,” Giner said. “My mom was my best friend. I could go to her for anything. She took away a big piece of my life.”

Estrem was a former Proctor school bus driver and had recently started working for Senior Friend Associates as a homemaker. On the day of her death, Giner said, she had stayed late at Ecumen because she liked spending time with the client she was working with.

Estrem originally came from California. Giner said she moved the family to Duluth to seek a safer community without drugs and violence after he was stabbed six times.

“She wanted the best for us,” he said. “Little did she know she’d come in contact with Ms. Katzmark.”

The family asked the judge to impose the maximum term, as did Assistant St. Louis County Attorney Chris Pinkert, who argued that a prison sentence was necessary in order to send a message to the community.

Defense attorney Mikkel Long argued for an unspecified period of probation. He cited Katzmark’s lack of criminal history, her continued service as an emergency room nurse and her acceptance of responsibility for her actions.

Katzmark’s mother, Judith Stefans, spoke in support of her daughter. She described struggles her daughter had overcome, including the premature birth and three-month hospitalization of her first-born son.

“She has worked faithfully as a caring and dedicated nurse all these years,” Stefans said. “She’s a very strong advocate for all her patients.”

Katzmark turned to face the Estrem family in the gallery as she apologized for her actions.

“I think about Ms. Estrem every single day and know it’s something I’ll think about for the rest of my life,” she said. “I don’t know what I can do. There’s nothing I can do to bring her back.”

Katzmark must serve at least two-thirds of the prison term, or 32 months, before she would be eligible for supervised release.

A Minnesota State Patrol car in Gov. Mark Dayton’s security detail collided with another car in St. Paul on Thursday evening, sending the driver of the civilian vehicle to Regions Hospital.

The collision happened around 7 p.m at Summit Avenue and Dale Street.

St. Paul police said the victim, a man, did not suffer life-threatening injuries.

Witnesses, however, told KMSP-TV that he may have broken his neck, though he could move his extremities.

Witnesses said Dayton’s vehicle and the unmarked State Patrol car were heading west on Summit Avenue when the tailing  State Patrol car struck a red hatchback heading south on Dale, sending the sedan spinning into the front yard of a Summit Avenue apartment complex.

“I can confirm the unmarked car was (the) second car following the governor,” said Lt. Tiffani Nielson, a public information officer with the State Patrol.

A State Patrol trooper transported himself to the hospital for precautionary evaluation, according to St. Paul police, who were investigating the collision.

The intersection at Summit and Dale is controlled by a traffic signal.

The governor, who was not involved in the crash, was not injured. The governor’s staff referred all questions to police and the State Patrol.

The Governor’s Residence is located on Summit, less than a mile west of the crash scene.

This is the crash at Summit and Dale. Black car is some agency’s squad. Injuries not too serious according to @sppdPIO pic.twitter.com/HeuzAgiSVx

— Jaime DeLage (@JaimeDeLage) August 11, 2017

St. Paul has been dropped as a party in a slew of multi-million dollar lawsuits that sprang from a St. Paul police officer’s handling of an allegedly fabricated federal sex trafficking.

A federal judge ruled this week that the suits failed to support allegations that it was any of the city’s customs, practices or policies that influenced the lead investigator’s botched handling of the case, nor that such behavior was widespread among other police officers, according to court documents.

Therefore, the judge ordered that the city, as well as the St. Paul police supervisors that had been named in the roughly 20 lawsuits, be dismissed from the claims.

The judge also dismissed more than half of the 21 lawsuits previously facing the officer in question, St. Paul police Sgt. Heather Weyker.

In those instances, the court found that the plaintiffs failed to make their case that their constitutional rights had been violated when they were detained following Weyker’s alleged fabrication of evidence and other information in the multistate sex-trafficking ring, legal documents say.

The operation led to the imprisonment of some 30 people, many of them Minnesotans of Somali descent.

In some of those cases, the federal judge found that the individuals were lawfully detained for other alleged crimes.

“This was a clear win for the city,” St. Paul City Attorney Samuel Clark said of the rulings. “The simple fact of the matter is that the court dismissed the vast majority of the claims and defendants in these cases. The few cases that are left are much more narrow than what the plaintiffs hoped for. The remaining plaintiffs are in for an uphill battle moving forward.”

Weyker was accused in the lawsuits of falsely manufacturing evidence against the various plaintiffs “in order to secure a federal indictment” that led to their imprisonment, legal documents say.

Thirty people were charged in the sex-trafficking case, which authorities said involved juvenile victims and stretched from the Twin Cities to Nashville, Tenn. Last year, a federal appeals court blasted the handling of the case, leading prosecutors to subsequently dismiss charges against the incarcerated defendants.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in its findings underscored a district court’s analysis that Weyker “likely exaggerated or fabricated important aspects” of an alleged victim’s story, that she lied to a grand jury and also later during a detention hearing, court documents say.

A handful of the lawsuits are still proceeding against Weyker though, including one filed by Hamdi Ali Osman, a Somali woman who moved to the United States when she was 2 and grew up in Minneapolis.

Osman’s case garnered media attention. She was detained for four years due to what she claims were Weyker’s lies.

She sued Weyker as well as some of her supervisors at the St. Paul police department and the city itself last year. Her suit seeks $12 million in damages.

Though the court’s recent order drops Weyker’s superiors and the city from its claims, the federal judge found that Osman’s claims against Weyker were plausible enough to move forward.

“Osman adequately alleges that no sex-trafficking conspiracy existed and that Weyker fabricated evidence as to the sex-trafficking-related charges, leading to Osman’s unlawful arrest and continued detention,” legal documents say.

Osman’s attorney, Andrew Irlbeck, called the judge’s ruling in that regard a victory.

“Although this case has a long way to go before justice is ultimately served, Ms. Osman has won the first battle in this fight to vindicate her civil rights, and for that, she and her attorneys are grateful,” he wrote in a prepared statement.

Irlbeck also represents a handful of others whose suits were dismissed by the judge’s recent order. He said he is considering the next steps for those clients.

“Judge Ericksen is a very respected jurist, and her opinions reflect a keen attention to detail and deep analysis given the heavy task at hand.  We are going to give her orders due consideration, and work with our clients to determine the best path forward for each of them,” Irlbeck wrote.

A spokesman for the United States Justice Department’s civil division, which has one of its attorneys representing Weyker against the allegations, said the department had no comment on the recent legal developments.

Weyker had previously argued that all claims against her be dismissed because the plaintiffs “fail(ed) to plausibly alleged that (Weyker) … violated any clearly established constitutional right,” according to court documents.

Weyker initially was placed on administrative leave after the allegations against her surfaced. She has since returned to work in a non-investigative role and is currently serving as a sergeant in the St. Paul police department’s community engagement unit.