Cathy LaMere started the countdown as soon as her son was convicted.

Sentenced to 10 years for providing the drug his friend died using, she knew he’d get out in about six with good behavior.

Six Christmases and birthdays and Mother’s Days without Tim, then five, four …

Last February, Timothy LaMere was released from prison on Valentine’s Day into a halfway house. In September, he was finally back on his own.

“I had all kinds of plans,” Cathy LaMere recalled of what she’d hoped to do with her newly reunited family.

“Trips, going to the State Fair … just doing everything we didn’t get to do for the last six and a half years. … I looked forward to every aspect of his life.”

Cathy LaMere is again enduring life’s big events without her only son. This time, there is no countdown.

LaMere died suddenly last month of cardiac arrest attributed to natural causes, according to the Ramsey County medical examiner’s office. He was 28.

LaMere was thrust into the public eye in 2011 when he bought a bottle of the synthetic drug 2C-E — often described as a mix of ecstasy and LSD — online and took it to a Blaine house party on March 17, 2011. LaMere and 10 others, including 19-year-old Trevor Robinson, took it. Most of them snorted lines of the white powder.

All of the partiers overdosed that night and wound up in hospitals. Robinson, a good friend of LaMere’s, died.

Robinson was attending Anoka Ramsey Community College and working part time at Aveda Corp. in Blaine when he died. He was also a father. Hundreds turned out for his funeral at North Heights Lutheran Church in Arden Hills, where he was remembered not only as someone who liked raising the eyebrows of adults and making people laugh, but also as a fiercely loyal friend and family member.

The Anoka County attorney’s office filed third-degree murder charges against LaMere for providing the drug. He pleaded guilty in 2012.

‘PUNCH TO THE FACE’

The case shone a spotlight on the dangers of what appeared to be a rising tide of designer-drug use. It intensified local lawmakers’ efforts to make it more difficult for them to be sold and to make prosecuting cases involving their distribution easier.

Nearly identical to the controlled drugs they were made to emulate, their manufacturers — many of them located overseas — tweak molecules in the synthetic versions just enough to try to skirt drug laws. At the time, the substances were commonly sold at head shops, truck stops and other outlets.

LaMere’s case also seemed to mark a shift in how some prosecutors approached fatal drug overdoses.

In the five years before his conviction, 10 defendants were sentenced statewide on third-degree murder charges related to the distribution of drugs that led to fatal overdoses, according to the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission. In the five years after, 29 were sentenced. Data is not yet available for 2017 or 2018.

“LaMere was sort of that punch to the face in terms of how we needed to be (approaching) these kinds of cases,” said Paul Young, chief of the Anoka County attorney’s office’s criminal division and the prosecutor who tried the case against LaMere.

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“It was an awakening that young people are doing very dangerous things and they are having dire consequences, and while criminal prosecution isn’t going to necessarily stop drug use … by investigating and prosecuting these cases, we can maybe start chipping away at the problem one case at a time,” Young added.

‘HE WAS A POLITICAL PAWN’

Cathy LaMere says her son was unfairly targeted by authorities for buying what he thought was a legal substance online.

“He was a political pawn; everybody knows that,” she said. “Everybody who came in contact with him couldn’t believe what happened to him.”

Young disagrees.

“He wasn’t a fall guy for an ill-advised international drug trade,” he said. “He knowingly purchased something that was illegal, that was dangerous, and distributed it at a party, and it had significant consequences, not just for the victim who died but for everyone who got sick.”

Brad Zunker, Timothy LaMere’s defense attorney at the time, did not respond to requests for comment.

‘HE COULD HAVE BEEN BITTER’

LaMere was interviewed by the Pioneer Press two years into his prison term at the state correctional facility in Lino Lakes. He kept a photograph of Robinson on his cell wall.

LaMere spoke of the regret he felt over what happened to one of his best friends and how the pain he’d caused Robinson’s family, particularly his mother, never left him.

Robinson’s mom, Jill Robinson, has never blamed LaMere for what happened and urged prosecutors to send him to treatment, not prison.

“I wish I could go back,” LaMere said during the 2013 interview. “A lot of people say that about a bad experience, but I mean even if I had more time to do … I wish I could go back and give her her son back, you know. I wish that every day.”

He also spoke of the gratitude he felt for the way prison had forced an end to his drug use and reawakened some of his old interests.

He started working out and lost 60 pounds in addition to spending hours each week teaching basic literacy to adults. He also prayed regularly, and began visiting schools with other inmates to talk to students about the dangers of drug use, according to his mom.

“With everything that happened to him, he could have been very bitter,” Cathy LaMere said. “But instead, he rose up and made such a difference in every life he had seen in prison, and every life out.”

‘IT ALL JUST MAKES NO SENSE’

One of the first things Timothy LaMere did upon his release was get a tattoo to honor Robinson, according to Jill Robinson, who stayed connected to LaMere through the years. It showed Robinson’s birth and death dates along with a fist over his heart.

He and Jill Robinson had been talking about trying to find ways to spread the word about the dangers of drugs when she heard LaMere had died.

“I just talked to him the day he died,” she said. “He was such a good kid. … I’ve always forgiven him from the moment it all happened. He loved Trevor.”

LaMere was living with a few friends at the time and had plans to apply for a journeymanship for pipe insulation, according to his mother. He was spending time reconnecting with old friends and his large extended family.

LaMere died the day after Easter, his mom said. He and his sister had gone to a casino that night. After dropping her off at the end of the night, he went to a friend’s house. At some point, he started complaining of shortness of breath.

The friend got up to get him some water. When she got back, he wasn’t breathing.

“I know he is OK. He had great faith. I know he’s up in heaven,” Cathy LaMere said. “We will never be OK, though. … He was my inspiration.”

DESIGNER DRUGS STILL A PROBLEM

The landscape has changed for designer drugs in the wake of LaMere’s case, experts say.

Legislation has been passed making it illegal to use or sell designer drugs such as the 2C-E that killed Robinson, and every year more substances are added to the state’s list of controlled substances, according to Cody Wiberg, executive director of the Minnesota Board of Pharmacy.

It’s also much less common to hear about a head shop or a truck stop selling the substances since the 2013 conviction of the owner of the Duluth head shop Last Place on Earth for refusing to stop peddling designer drugs. Jim Carlson was sentenced to 17½ years prison.

“I think that probably had a powerful deterrent effect on other (retailers),” Wiberg said.

Yet, the use of designer drugs in Minnesota has held relatively steady, said Carol Falkowski, a former drug-abuse strategy officer with the Minnesota Department of Human Services who tracks drug-abuse trends.

Leading the way continues to be use of synthetic marijuana, often called K2. The Minnesota Poison Control center had 212 exposures to the substance reported to its staff last year. There were just five involving synthetic hallucinogens such as 2C-E and 21 related to so-called bath salts.

“(The Blaine case) really marked the beginning of it and since then, (designer drugs have) just become a part of the fabric of drug abuse as opposed to a trend that has come and gone,” Falkowski said. Drugs with “significant risk,” she adds.

LASTING IMPACT OF OVERDOSE

A.J. Carver was 16 when she snorted a line of the 2C-E alongside LaMere, Robinson and seven others that night.

The trip took her into her “own personal hell,” she said. The traumatizing images she saw still sometimes reappear to her in nightmares.

The experience taught her “not to play with fire,” she said.

“It shook me into reality that I am not invincible and that the things I do to myself matter and that drugs are something we just shouldn’t play with,” she said.

Carver was so shaken by what happened that she’s since cut ties with the others who were at the party that night, she said.

She follows their lives on social media, though, and says all of them seem to be doing well; some are in college, others raising children. At least one is sober.

Carver is a junior at Anoka Ramsey Community College pursuing a business degree.

“Everybody, I think, took that night very seriously and we got our (expletive) together,” she said. “It was a very pivotal moment. We all changed our lives around for the better.”

She’s not happy about the way things ended up for LaMere, though.

“I just think we were all made an example of, and I don’t think Trevor would have wanted anyone to get in trouble for something we all chose to do,” she said. “It’s just really sad. Now Timmy’s gone, right after he had a fresh start.”

Police are seeking two people after a man was shot and wounded Sunday in western Wisconsin.

Shawn Harris Goplen, 34, of Red Wing, Minn., and Kari Lynn Blank, 36, of Ellsworth, Wis., are sought. The two should be considered armed and dangerous, the Dunn County sheriff’s office said in a statement Monday. Anyone who sees either of the two should call 911 and not approach either one.

Law enforcement got a report of a man with a gunshot wound at about 10:45 p.m. Sunday, in Tainter Township, the sheriff’s statement said.

The victim was rushed by ambulance to an Eau Claire, Wis., hospital. He was conscious during transport but his condition wasn’t available, the statement said.

The Dunn County sheriff’s office Goplen, as a white man who stands 5 feet 11” and weighs 300 pounds. He has brown hair and hazel eyes. A warrant is out for his arrest for attempted first-degree intentional homicide.

Blank is a white woman who stands 5 feet 5 and weighs 190 pounds. She has brown hair and blue eyes, the department said. She is wanted as a party to attempted first-degree homicide.

Anyone who knows of Goplen’s or Blank’d whereabouts or the circumstances surrounding the shooting is asked to contact the Dunn County sheriff’s office at 715-232-1348. To remain anonymous, tipsters may contact Dunn County Crime Stoppers at dunncocrimestoppers.com.

A 40-year-old St. Paul man drowned Monday morning while fishing the Cannon River west of Red Wing, according to the Goodhue County Sheriff’s Office.

The man was fishing off the shore near Welch when he fell in and failed to surface, the sheriff’s office said. They received a 911 call at 11:36 a.m.

Authorities have not named the man, but KSTP-TV identified him through a family member as Mor Gelay, a refugee from Myanmar with six children.

The sheriff’s office and DNR conservation officers searched the water with an airboat and a boat equipped with sonar. More than an hour after the emergency call, canoers reported seeing the man’s body in the water.

Searchers retrieved the body about 1 p.m.

LOS ANGELES — Last year, Matthew Johnston logged onto his Facebook account to vent.

Going to be deleting a lot of people off of Facebook. Just realized how many fake people I have on here, he wrote.

But at the time Johnston might have been the biggest faker on his own Facebook page: a man posing as a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer until his arrest in October.

That’s when federal agents served a search warrant at his Fontana home. They took him into custody on suspicion of impersonating an ICE agent and also discovered a cache of weapons and explosive devices.

Investigators determined that Johnston had purchased a fake ICE badge from a vendor in China and created the credentials with the help of a friend.

Last week, Johnston was sentenced to two years in federal prison.

Why, of all the law enforcement officers, did Johnston pick an ICE agent? He told federal investigators that he wanted to impress people while choosing an agency he felt nobody knew about.

It was, on its face, an ironic statement, given the prominence of ICE and its front-line role in President Donald Trump’s battle against illegal immigration.

And yet, how many people really know what an ICE agent looks and dresses like?

Immigration officers have often been mistaken for police officers during enforcement actions. They have also impersonated occupational safety officials at work sites.

Immigration enforcement advocates say so-called sanctuary city policies have led federal agents to use such ploys.

The Department of Homeland Security has said such tactics are consistent with its authorities under federal law and in accordance with the Constitution.

Johnston told investigators that he didn’t pick a local law enforcement agency because that seemed riskier.

His family did not respond to multiple requests for comments.

ICE, which falls under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security, has more than 20,000 employees, according to the department’s website.

Joseph Macias, special agent in charge of ICE’s Homeland Security Initiative in Los Angeles, said Johnston simply picked a department that was in the limelight.

“I took it as him boasting about himself,” Macias said. “He wanted to show his bravado to his new girlfriend and be able to say ‘I’m an ICE agent.’ ”

Jeff Gilgallon, special agent in charge for ICE’s Los Angeles Office of Professional Responsibility, said there has been an uptick of such cases.

Shortly after Trump won the presidential election, Michael Ruiz impersonated an ICE officer and swindled immigrants in South Carolina out of roughly $70,000, authorities allege. This marks the second time he has faced these allegations. Ruiz was sent to prison in 2010 in a scam that took more than $200,000 from immigrants.

In April 2017, a former Washington Post employee was accused of impersonating an ICE officer. And earlier this year in Delaware, a woman and man were arrested and charged with impersonating ICE agents in an attempt to rob a woman.

Gilgallon said other cases involved telephone scams and insider schemes such as a person claiming to have access to a Homeland Security employee who could speed up immigration cases.

“When they impersonate the agent, it undermines the public’s confidence in law enforcement,” Gilgallon said. “We’re reaching out to police departments and educating them of the various schemes that are out there.”

Federal investigators began to unravel Johnston’s lies in October when a San Bernardino County Sheriff’s deputy pulled over a white 2017 Audi, according to federal prosecutors and a federal affidavit.

The driver was Johnston’s girlfriend, who had accidentally turned on the blue and red emergency lights on the vehicle’s dash.

The woman told the deputy that she was trying to plug in her phone and didn’t realize she had activated the lights. She told him the car belonged to Johnston and that he worked for Homeland Security.

The deputy asked the woman to call Johnston. On the phone, Johnston identified himself as an ICE agent and said he had forgotten to take the lights off the dash. Johnston asked the deputy to have his girlfriend remove the lights. She did and was allowed to go.

The next day the deputy informed ICE of Johnston’s claim of being an ICE employee, triggering an investigation after Johnston’s name didn’t come up as a federal employee.

Over several days, investigators discovered social media accounts in which Johnston claimed to be a federal agent. There were photos too.

One image on a Facebook account “showed Johnston standing by (a) doorway wearing a dark blue polo shirt with insignia patches … on his right shoulder, body armor, tactical khakis, and a tactical dropdown holster, similar to that of an ICE agent,” the affidavit said.

On his Facebook accounts he said he was employed at Homeland Security and worked in “Fugitive Apprehension.”

Federal investigators interviewed Johnston’s girlfriend, who told them she learned of his employment after asking him. She showed them photos Johnston had sent her.

“The photo showed a handgun, a pair of black handcuffs, a Homeland Security ID badge with Johnston’s picture and the DHS seal, and gold ICE belt badge,” the affidavit said.

The girlfriend told investigators that Johnston had given her $1,500 to $2,000 every week for no reason.

Investigators don’t believe Johnston used his fake authority to shake immigrants down for money.

But Johnston had committed to the role.

Investigators said Johnston had taken a report from his girlfriend’s friend, who was having problems trying to remove a roommate from her apartment. The roommate was in the country illegally. In another instance, Johnston saw a hit-and-run and chased after a car with his red and blue lights on, causing the driver to crash.

Johnston was known to tell people at Deja Vu Showgirls in the City of Industry that he worked as a Homeland Security agent. The staff declined to comment.

Those who knew him there described him as a nice person who would show up at the club a few times a week. He wasn’t known to brag about his purported employment with Homeland Security, but people knew about it.

“We want to know the truth. Who was he?” one person said.

The federal affidavit shows that on several occasions Johnston tried to pull people over, including two women who worked at Deja Vu.

On Oct. 20, federal investigators served a search warrant at Johnston’s home in Fontana, where he lived with his parents. Federal agents found 32 firearms, including shotguns, rifles, pistols and revolvers; about 10,000 rounds of ammunition; two rocket launchers; and explosive materials and devices, according to the federal affidavit.

Agents also found a body armor plate carrier bearing an olive drab Homeland Security seal and an American flag, a polo shirt bearing the Homeland Security seal and marked “ICE” on the front and “Police ICE” on the back. They also found a phone used “to create fake telephone numbers so that he could send messages to himself to bolster his ICE identity,” the affidavit said.

Investigators also learned that Johnston had sold an AR-15 to a man for $700.

According to the affidavit, Johnston told investigators he was able to get a security guard job with Southern Executive Security because the company believed that he was an ICE agent.

But a company official disputed that claim.

“To my knowledge, he did not work for our office,” said Sal Hanna, vice president of operations for Southern Executive Security.

Investigators said they believe Johnston impersonated an immigration officer after his former wife insulted him in front of his daughter in 2016.

She “told his daughter that he had done nothing with his life,” the affidavit said.

Except Johnston had. Just nothing to brag about.

Six people were killed in separate crashes over the Memorial Day weekend in Minnesota.

The tally brings the total fatalities in the state to 118 so far this year, ahead of the 115 who had died in 2017 at this time, according to the Minnesota Department of Public Safety.  Among the dead were:

• A 21-year-old male motorcyclist fleeing police in Mower County.
• A 69-year-old female motorcyclist riding too fast for conditions in Anoka County.
• A 23-year-old male motorcyclist who crashed in Dakota County.
• A 27-year-old man whose vehicle drifted into oncoming traffic in Scott County.
• A 19-year-old female passenger in a Dakota County crash.
• A 45-year-old man who crashed his ATV in Red Lake.

The State Patrol also responded to 228 property damage crashes, 37 injuries in crashes, and five serious injury crashes over the weekend. There were 374 people arrested on suspicion of driving while drunk over the weekend.

A Roseville man was sentenced to four years in prison for burglarizing the home of St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter in August, an incident Carter described as “traumatizing” for he and his family.

Ramsey County District Judge Robert Awsumb handed down Larobin Shawntel Scott’s sentence during a hearing last Friday, according to court records.

The 24-year-old was charged with first-degree burglary last summer after the then- mayoral candidate alerted police that his family’s home had been ransacked. The items missing included a video game system, ammunition, a plastic bag with a child’s tooth inside, a box of cigars and two handguns.

Carter’s neighbor had notified him that someone was at his house in the 400 block of Aurora Street the morning of Aug. 15, 2017, prompting Carter to return home and call 911.

Carter, who was elected to the mayor post in November, told officers that he saw a man in his back yard who started running. Carter followed him in his vehicle and then ran after him, but the suspect got into a sport utility vehicle that drove away, according to court records.

Police discovered the front door of Carter’s home had been damaged and a basement window broken. There was also heavy damage on the door from the garage into the house.

Two days later, police stopped a vehicle that matched the description of the SUV and found several of the missing items, minus the two handguns, inside. Scott was driving it.

He denied any involvement in the burglary at the time but pleaded guilty to the charge in April after reaching a plea deal with the state.

According to a motion filed by his defense attorney, public defender Luis Enrique Rangel Morales, Scott admitted to serving as the getaway driver in the incident.

Morales argued in the motion that both his client and society would be better served if the court ordered Scott to attend treatment and placed him on probation rather than send him to prison.

Morales cited Scott’s lack of a high school degree, homelessness, “menial job skills” and chemical substance abuse among his reasons.

“At its core, prison lacks the foundation to address these concerns,” Morales wrote.

He added that Scott’s remorse, willingness to take responsibility for his actions and amenability to probation further supported his request.

Morales could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Awsumb wound up sentencing Scott to just over four years in prison.

Carter described the burglary shortly after the incident as a “traumatic one for myself and my family, especially my children.”

The guns stolen from his residence — which Carter said once belonged to his father, a retired St. Paul police officer — were in a locked box and also trigger-locked, according to information provided by his campaign at the time. Carter told police he did not have the guns’ serial numbers.

What started as a class project for three St. Catherine University students led to St. Paul police changing its policy on how St. Paul police officers are to communicate with people who are deaf.

The students, who just completed their second year in the St. Paul university’s American Sign Language/interpreting program, raised their concerns in a letter to the police chief at the end of December.

“Interactions with the police can be stressful and difficult, and clear communication is important,” wrote students Catherine Fensom, Liza Leja and Pat Schmatz. “The potential for misunderstanding is high when the interpreter has limited language skills.”

Deputy Police Chief Paul Iovino said they immediately got to work after hearing from the students. They met with an official from the Minnesota Department of Human Services’ Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services, along with representatives from six associations who work with deaf people, to discuss policy suggestions. They implemented many of them this month in a revised policy, Iovino said.

The previous policy said an officer must make a “qualified” interpreter available before taking a statement from a deaf person who is under arrest, but the revised policy specifies the interpreter must be nationally certified. Officers were previously required to provide victims or witnesses with a pen and paper or other way to communicate. The new policy says they may provide them an interpreter.

Iovino applauded the St. Kate’s students for taking their classroom learning and applying it to the community to bring about change.

“It’s not always flattering to read that we have an outdated policy that deserves and needs immediate attention, but we immediately wanted to be very good stewards with the policy,” he said. “… “We do want to make sure we’re providing trusted service with respect to all communities and this gets us closer to continuing to do that.”

One of the groups involved in providing feedback to police, Helping Educate to Advance the Rights of the Deaf (HEARD), said in a statement Tuesday they “have a number of concerns with the policy and are working with our communities to develop a public response.”

PREVIOUS LAWSUIT

The police department agreed to change its policy in 2013 as part of a $93,450 settlement in a federal lawsuit filed by Doug Bahl, who was deaf.

In 2006, a St. Paul police officer pulled Bahl over for a traffic violation and Bahl requested to communicate with him in writing. Bahl said in his lawsuit that the officer sprayed him with a chemical irritant, dragged him out of his car and beat him.

Bahl’s attorney, Rick Macpherson, said Tuesday he noticed the newest policy change emphasizes using certified interpreters. That issue is at the center of a federal lawsuit Macpherson filed on behalf of Catrina Hooper, who is deaf, against the St. Paul police department last summer.

Hooper asked for a qualified American Sign Language interpreter when she attempted to file domestic assault charges and was provided with an officer who is not certified in ASL, her lawsuit says.

Requiring that police use a certified interpreter is “a good step forward” in the policy, Macpherson said, but he said that was supposed to happen after the Bahl settlement agreement.

“Perhaps if they had adopted this policy after the Bahl agreement … Ms. Hooper might not have had the problem she experienced,” said Macpherson, who is with the Minnesota Disability Law Center.

Hooper’s lawsuit with St. Paul is ongoing. The city denies that the officer who was provided to Hooper was not qualified as an interpreter, according to a filing in the case.

Hooper also filed suit against Ramsey County and the sheriff’s office, saying she was not provided an ASL interpreter in the jail when she requested one, and they reached a $40,000 settlement last year. She had been arrested on a misdemeanor warrant, according to the city’s legal response to the suit.

Iovino said the policy change wasn’t related to the Hooper case, though “the timing was certainly appropriate.”

COMMUNITY INVOLVED

For a project for their deaf culture class, Fensom said she and her classmates decided, “with the climate in today’s society regarding police officers, we thought it would be interesting to look at relations between police and the deaf community.”

To begin with, Fensom, Leja and Schmatz told the police department in their letter that the name of the policy — “Persons Handicapped in Communication” — was “startling” and “(m)any people who are deaf and hard-of-hearing do not consider themselves handicapped.”

Iovino said they didn’t realize the wording was outdated. The new policy is called “Effective Communication with Persons Who are Deaf, Hard of Hearing, Deaf/Blind, Have Hearing Loss and/or for Whom English is a Second Language.”

People from the deaf community weren’t involved in the policy change last time, according to the police department. The students wrote they had “learned about the long history of hearing people making decisions for and about deaf people” and they urged the police department to seek the community’s input.

Marie Koehler, Minnesota Department of Human Services’ Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services regional manager, said her agency helped connect the police department with people in the community and co-hosted a meeting.

The group HEARD met with St. Paul police in mid-March and provided some feedback. The police department said they would follow-up and provide opportunities to comment on the draft policy, according to HEARD’s statement, but they were surprised on May 15 to see an email from St. Paul police with the final policy.

“The version as it stands has a number of deeply concerning issues that will lead to miscommunication and rights violations,” HEARD said in a statement on Tuesday.

Iovino said last week that the document is “fluid” and “if things evolve … we’re going to change it again.”

The police department has distributed information department-wide about their revised policy.

Fensom said she and her classmates weren’t expecting anything to come from their letter.

“All change starts small,” said Fensom, who is from Moorhead, Minn. “It’s really exciting that the police department took our suggestions and implemented them, and hopefully this will be the start of more connections between them and the deaf community.”

NEW YORK MILLS, Minn. — Medical examiners have identified the human remains found in west-central Minnesota on May 20 as those of 46-year-old Lynda Renae Meyer, according to a news release.

The Midwest Medical Examiner’s Office positively identified Meyer on Friday.

Her remains were discovered by someone walking through a section of woods between railroad tracks and a roadway in New York Mills.

Meyer was last seen July 23, 2016, when she walked away from a treatment facility in New York Mills. She was later reported as a missing person. At that time, Meyer was 46 years old and lived in Fergus Falls.

There is no foul play suspected in Meyer’s death, according to a report from the New York Mills Police Department.

A Bloomington woman was arrested over the weekend after a domestic dispute left her husband dead, police say.

Bloomington police responded shortly after 8 p.m. Sunday to a domestic assault in the 10600 block of Utica Circle, where they found 53-year-old Michael Scott Carpenter unconscious and suffering from head injuries, according to a news release issued Monday by the Bloomingto Police Department.

Carpenter was taken to Hennepin County Medical Center, where he died of blunt-force “craniocerebral injuries,” the Hennepin County medical examiner’s office said in a news release.

Carpenter’s wife, 51-year-old Pamela Dowd Carpenter, was arrested on suspicion of murder and is being held in the Bloomington Jail.

Authorities have identified the Hennepin County sheriff’s deputy who shot a man during a standoff last week in Crystal.

The Minnesota Department of Public Safety Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said Tuesday that Allen Magelssen has been a deputy with the Hennepin County sheriff’s office since 2006.

The BCA also identified the man injured during the incident last Wednesday evening. Jamar Winston Hollins, 39, of Crystal remains hospitalized at North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale, where he is being treated for a gunshot wound that is not life-threatening.

Law enforcement officers were serving a protection order against Hollins when he armed himself with a knife and locked himself in a bathroom at a home in the 3600 block of Colorado Avenue North.

After more than two hours of negotiation, officers forced their way into the bathroom and made repeated attempts to subdue Hollins with a Taser, without success. That’s when Magelssen fired his gun, hitting the man, according to the BCA.

A St. Paul teenager is accused of firing the shot that killed an aspiring rapper in March outside an Inver Grove Heights movie theater.

Trashaun Nij Morris, 17, was charged Tuesday with three counts of murder in the death of 19-year-old Billy Ray Robles, according to documents filed Tuesday in Dakota County District Court.

Robles was killed on March 24 during an exchange of gunfire between rival teenage gang members after they stepped off a party bus in the parking lot of AMC Showplace 16. While two of the teens are known to have fired guns that night, investigators believe it was Morris who fired the fatal shot, the charging documents say.

Two 16-year-olds have already pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the incident. Samson Chu, the other shooter, and Daunte Martin both received suspended sentences in May.

Witnesses told investigators that Morris shot first in the parking lot that night, and that Chu returned fire from less than 20 feet away, according to court documents. Cellphone video suggests Robles was standing near Chu when he was struck in the chest, the charges say.

Bullets and a bullet fragment found lodged in parked vehicles behind where Robles was standing matched the caliber of the gun witnesses say Morris fired that night, according to court documents.

Morris was arrested in Minneapolis in April by the U.S. Marshals Service after spending nearly a month on the run from police.

A motion to try Morris as an adult is pending in juvenile court, according to a news release issued by the Dakota County attorney’s office. Morris was already facing riot and assault charges stemming from the fight.

Robles, a rapper from St. Paul’s West Side, performed in videos under the moniker BillyThaKidd.

BISMARCK — A Bismarck pharmacist accused of terrorizing students at a school and sending child pornography is now accused of planting covert cameras in his residence and stalking an underage girl.

New information from an investigation into Curtis James McGarvey, 50, prompted a second case to be opened, according to Assistant Burleigh County State’s Attorney Tessa Vaagen, who is prosecuting both cases.

On Friday, McGarvey was charged with six counts of promoting a sexual performance of a minor, one count of promoting obscenity to minors and one count of stalking.

“The information that we had for the second case, we didn’t have right away when we charged out the first case, so that’s why we charged out another case,” Vaagen said.

According to court documents, the ongoing investigation involving stalking began in June 2016 when the Burleigh County Sheriff’s Department received a report that someone had hacked into an underage girl’s cell phone and was “leaving messages” on her phone and then deleting them. The girl said someone had obtained her passwords and accounts on her phone.

The stalking continued through May 6, 2018.

During the investigation, the sheriff’s department identified a number of social media accounts, voice over internet protocol accounts and email addresses that were involved, which were later traced to McGarvey.

Court documents in the second case show that a search of McGarvey’s residence found numerous hidden cameras and hard drives. A video on one of the hard drives is of an underage girl exiting a bathroom after changing and McGarvey going into the bathroom to retrieve the camera that took the video. Another video depicts McGarvey setting up a video camera in the shower of the same bathroom, and then him checking the view of that video camera on his cell phone.

A search warrant of an iPhone taken from McGarvey’s possession had 15 videos of four instances involving the girl in a bathroom either changing clothes or taking a shower. There were an additional 27 images taken from these videos that were edited.

During the course of the investigation, more than 50 photos, edited and unedited, were sent to individuals, posted on social media or released by McGarvey, court documents allege. Some of the photos were of the girl’s face placed in a photo involving a sexual act or on the body of a nude or partially nude female.

Investigators were able to match more than 25 photos located on McGarvey’s phone to the photos that had been released.

Additional information also led to the dismissal of several charges against McGarvey in the initial case, Vaagen said. In that case, McGarvey faces nine counts of promoting obscenity to minors, child neglect and terrorizing. On Friday, McGarvey’s bond was increased from $250,000 to $350,000.

A fight outside a St. Paul recreation center drew more than 60 people earlier this month and for witnesses in the Summit Hill neighborhood was too reminiscent of brawls a year earlier.

More than 30 residents attended a community meeting Tuesday night and some expressed frustration over how long it took before police arrived — about 20 minutes from the first call. They also questioned why the fights by the Linwood Recreation Center happened in their neighborhood.

Police said the fights erupted after people randomly selected the park at St. Clair Avenue at Victoria Street as a meeting place.

St. Paul Police Senior Cmdr. Steve Anderson said he understands neighbors’ concerns, but he also stressed that the park is “one of the of safest in the city” and they want it to continue to be a community asset.

City Councilmember Rebecca Noecker, who represents the area, said she and St. Parks and Recreation staff worked together to identify extra funding to install security cameras at the rec center. They’re due to be in place this summer.

Police also said they have been doing extra patrols in the area.

FIGHT OVER SOCIAL MEDIA RUMORS

Resident Chuck Evens said he thinks the cameras could be a deterrent, but he’s frustrated by what’s happened lately. He’s lived in the neighborhood for 15 years and, before a year ago, said he never had to call 911. Now, he has called three times in the last year.

The most recent was May 6, when Evens said he could hear what “sounded like a big brawl.”

Officers arrived to find a 31-year-old woman who was unconscious. She regained consciousness, said she didn’t want police services and left.

She and two other women, ages 19 and 21, went to the hospital and police were called there.

Police were told “there was some rumors and false allegations on social media” between former roommates, and they had gone to the park to confront each other about it “and then it just grew,” said Sgt. Bob Donahue, who is investigating the case. They picked the park because it was a neutral location and, of all the people gathered, four or five were doing most of the fighting, according to Cmdr. Kent Cleveland.

One of the injured women reported she was thrown down, held by the neck, struck with rocks and stomped in the head by other women, according to a police spokesman. Another woman said she was hit with rocks, a baseball bat and a crow bar.

A man who posted a short video of the confrontation on YouTube wrote on the St. Paul Issues Forum that people were fighting at the ballfields and then moved to the street. He wrote that large pieces of asphalt were used as weapons and a car window was smashed during the fight.

People at Tuesday’s meeting said they called 911 about the May 6 incident earlier this month, but kept waiting for officers to arrive.

The first call came in at 7:37 p.m. and was initially reported as people gathering at Linwood Rec Center, and that there was yelling and arguing, according to Nancie Pass, Ramsey County Emergency Communications Center deputy director. Between then and 7:52 p.m., officers were busy on other calls, she said.

Between 7:44 and 7:46 p.m., the 911 center received two more calls reporting the fight had turned physical. Then, 10 additional calls came into 911 between 7:47 and 7:52 p.m.

“The law dispatcher read the call updates and faced a decision to send officers to this call based on the information that we had and other high priority calls,” Pass said. “The dispatcher followed the policy and their training and prioritized the calls as necessary.”

The first available officer was dispatched at 7:53 p.m. and arrived three minutes later.

POLICE SAY PEOPLE INVOLVED ARE UNCOOPERATIVE

Evens said he also called 911 when there was a large fight near Linwood Rec last May and, last summer, when gunshots were fired in the area of St. Clair Avenue and Milton Street. He said police found about 35 casings and his vehicle was struck by a bullet.

“Police say it’s random, but it’s not like we’ve had to call 911 three times in a year before,” Evens said. “To us, it’s not random. It seems like a new pattern.”

On May 9, 2017 a large fight between young people — including some wielding baseball bats — broke out near the Linwood Rec during the early evening.

Three teens needed medical attention at St. Paul hospitals afterward. There also had been a fight less than a week earlier that involved a similar scenario.

An investigator determined that last year’s fights were part of ongoing disputes between high school students who fought at several locations over a one to two week period, Cleveland said.

Officers from the department’s gang unit looked at the cases from last year and this year, and didn’t find gang connections, according to police.

Kathy Larkins, who lives in the area, said she thinks police should have made arrests in the cases and responded more quickly.

“It seemed to me that they minimized these incidents and had many excuses why these youth received no consequences,” she said.

Police said the people involved in the fights have not been cooperative with their investigations.

In the recent case, Donahue said he made arrangements to meet with one of the women who was injured, but she hasn’t shown up to provide information. A police department community engagement specialist also has been working to convince the woman to meet with Donahue and give him a statement.

“It makes it very difficult from our end to be able to get any criminal charges if the people involved aren’t telling on each other and we don’t have independent witnesses saying, ‘That’s the person who threw the rock,’ ” Cleveland said.

A former Minneapolis police officer has been sentenced to four years in prison for sexually assaulting a woman when he was off duty.

Thomas Tichich, 49, was convicted in April of two counts of third-degree sexual assault. He was fired hours after the verdict.

Tichich was accused of forcing oral sex on the woman while she was sleeping after she had had too much to drink in December 2016. The woman testified at trial that she was unaware of what happened and didn’t consent to have sex with Tichich.

Tichich said the two planned to have consensual sex. But another woman in the house came upon them and took photos — and then ordered Tichich out of the house. The photos and DNA evidence were used in the case against Tichich.

“I suffered fear, emotional distress,” the victim told the court during Wednesday’s sentencing. “Those pictures will be forever ingrained in my brain. I am ready to close this chapter so I can move forward.”

Tichich apologized before sentencing but he said “his recollection was different,” than the victim’s, according to the Hennepin County attorney’s office.

Tichich sought a lighter sentence but Judge Tamara Garcia followed state guidelines and gave him 48 months in prison.

Friends and family of Jodi Huisentruit are hoping a new billboard campaign will solve the mystery of the morning news anchor’s 1995 disappearance in Mason City, Iowa.

Four billboards featuring a photo of Huisentruit and the message “Somebody knows something …is it YOU?” are being installed around the city to mark her 50th birthday on June 5; the first one went up on Wednesday.

Huisentruit was a 27-year-old anchor at KIMT-TV in Mason City on June 27, 1995, when she failed to show up for work to anchor the 6 a.m. broadcast. The Long Prairie, Minn., native hasn’t been seen since.

“Here we are for another anniversary of Jodi’s disappearance,” said Josh Benson, the cofounder of FindJodi.com, a website devoted to solving the case. “Someone knows what happened. We have to continue to find ways to reach people. We’ve never tried billboards before — and felt this is a good way to saturate Mason City with our message and reach out to those who may know something.”

The FindJodi.com team, which consists of retired police officers and journalists, paid for three of the billboards; Fairway Outdoor Advertising in Mason City donated the fourth. The billboards will stay up through June.

Anyone with information about Huisentruit’s disappearance is asked to call the FindJodi.com tip line at 970-458-JODI.

Diamond Reynolds teared up during her sentencing hearing for misdemeanor-level assault Wednesday, saying afterward that she felt the conditions placed on her for a crime she maintains she didn’t commit were unfair.

Ramsey County District Judge Elena Ostby told the 28-year-old mother that she was going beyond the recommendations of probation for the fifth-degree assault charge a jury convicted Reynolds of following a trial in March.

In addition to being placed on one year of supervised probation, Ostby ordered Reynolds to take an anger management class, undergo a chemical health and diagnostic assessment and complete 80 hours of community service.

“I am concerned about the fact that you haven’t really taken responsibility for your actions,” Ostby told her during the hearing. “Obviously, the jury spoke.”

Despite finding her guilty of fifth-degree assault, jurors acquitted Reynolds of the two more serious charges facing her in the case, which involved allegations she attacked another woman with a hammer last February.

Reynolds came into the public eye in July of 2016 after her boyfriend, Philando Castile, was fatally shot during a traffic stop in Falcon Heights by a St. Anthony police officer. Officer Jeronimo Yanez was subsequently charged with manslaughter but acquitted by a jury last summer.

Reynolds and two other women — Dyamond Richardson and Chnika Blair — were charged with assault last winter for allegedly attacking a woman that had been feuding with a friend of Reynolds in an unrelated incident that broke out outside a townhome on Jessamine Avenue the morning of Feb. 28, 2017.

Reynolds maintained that she had nothing to do with the altercation and that she was mistakenly identified as one of the attackers.

Both Richardson and Blair testified during Reynolds’ trial that she had been involved in the altercation.

They pleaded guilty to third-degree assault for their roles and were sentenced months ago.

Reynolds declined to make a statement during her sentencing Wednesday, as did the victim in the case.

Her attorneys, Karlowba Adams Powell and Michael Padden, asked the judge during the proceeding to allow Reynolds to be placed on administrative probation, rather than supervised, so that Reynolds could check in directly with the court rather than meet in person with a probation officer.

Reynolds wants to move to Atlanta to pursue various business interests, including work on a documentary and book about her life, as well as a nonprofit venture she’s recently launched called Black Love Twin Cities LLC.

The nonprofit aims to provide education and assistance to people, Reynolds said.

Administrative probation would make it easier for Reynolds to move to Atlanta sooner, Adams Powell argued.

Ostby was unswayed, saying it was in both Reynolds and the community’s “best interest” that she be placed on supervised probation.

She added later that Reynolds could transfer the supervised probation to another state if she was so inclined.

Ostby also gave Reynolds the opportunity to waive the $1,000 fine imposed for her conduct if she completes her GED.

“I know you want to better yourself and I want to give you the tools to do that,” Ostby told her. “You never got your high school degree, so let’s start there.”

“Yes ma’am,” Reynolds replied tearfully.

Afterward, she explained her emotional response.

“I just feel like it isn’t fair that my life is being constantly stripped of my rights,” she said.

She added that she’s hopeful the book and documentary will serve as her chance to let people know the real her, as well as what she’s gone through.

“That’s the main thing,” she said. “I feel like I’m misunderstood.”

A 4-year-old boy was hospitalized Monday after a motorist struck him and then fled the scene in St. Paul’s North End.

The child was crossing Klainert Street with an adult around 8:30 p.m. when a minivan started heading toward them, according to legal documents filed in Ramsey County District Court.

The adult, who later spoke to police, said she shouted at the driver several times to stop but he continued without slowing, court documents say.

The minivan ended up striking the child, prompting the driver to exit his vehicle briefly before climbing back in and fleeing the scene, according to the adult’s report to police.

Dennis Charles Blakey, 36, of St. Paul was charged Wednesday with two counts of criminal vehicular operation for his alleged involvement in the collision, according to the criminal complaint filed against him.

One of the counts alleges Blakey was under the influence of alcohol at the time. The second accuses him of fleeing the scene.

When police responded to the crash in the 1400 block of Klainert Street, they arrived as the boy was being loaded into an ambulance. He was taken to Regions Hospital, where he was diagnosed with a fractured left collarbone.

Police were led to Blakey after someone who witnessed the crash reported being at a Memorial Day party with Blakey at his residence. The witness noticed Blakey getting into his minivan, court documents say.

Then the witness heard the crash and ran down the street. The witness told police that Blakey briefly get out of his vehicle. When the person asked Blakey what had happened, Blakey said a “kid just ran out into the street,” the complaint said.

When interviewed by police, Blakey said he had been drinking for hours at a gathering with family and friends that day. He denied being involved in a pedestrian collision but said his vehicle had been briefly stolen during the party, legal documents say. He also refused to perform field sobriety tests.

Blakey reportedly had slurred speech and trouble keeping his balance during his initial contact with police, the complaint said.

His criminal record includes convictions for a DWI in 2015 as well as two convictions for refusing to submit to breath or chemical tests.

No attorney was listed for him in court records.

DETROIT LAKES, Minn. — A martial arts fighter from Hawley has been sentenced to 32 months in state prison in St. Cloud  for a brutal assault on another fighter while tubing on the Otter Tail River near Detroit Lakes last summer.

Jamie Lee Lampi, 28, was sentenced in Becker County District Court last month for felony third-degree assault.

According to court records, last July 3, Becker County officers were dispatched to an assault on the river. Lampi had assaulted a man, leaving him bloody and unable to walk, and he was rushed by ambulance to the Essentia St Mary’s Hospital in Detroit Lakes. Lampi was arrested nearby and told an officer he knew the victim from prior mixed martial arts competitions, that they had exchanged words, and that he had “reacted poorly.”

The victim later told officers they had been talking peaceably about MMA training and the next thing he remembers is waking up in the hospital. His jaw was broken in two places and had to be stabilized with a permanent metal plate. He had stitches above his lip and a cut above one eye, which was not dilating properly.

Witnesses said Lampi knocked down the victim and hit him multiple times. A young woman on the scene said she had to hold his head up so he didn’t choke on his own blood.

A St. Paul man was sentenced to more than a decade in prison for shooting into a crowded area in downtown Minneapolis last summer and wounding an innocent bystander.

Delorien Chatman, 29, was sentenced to roughly 13 years in prison in Hennepin County District Court on Wednesday after a jury found him guilty of first- and second-degree assault as well as possession of a firearm by a prohibited person in early May, according to information released by the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office.

“Mr. Chatman recklessly shot his gun in a crowded area of downtown and hit an innocent man. Thanks to the lifesaving efforts by the medical team at Hennepin County Medical Center, the victim is alive today,” Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said in a prepared statement. “We agree with the jury’s verdict and the sentence … We hope that Mr. Chatman will turn his life around, but if not, society will be protected from him for a good long while.”

Minneapolis police responded to a shooting at Sixth Street and Hennepin Avenue about 7 p.m. last Aug. 22 and found a man with a gunshot wound to his stomach.

Witnesses told officers that two men had been fighting with Chatman and Chatman was knocked to the ground. At that point, Chatman stood up, pulled out a gun, and fired a shot that wound up hitting the bystander, who was waiting for the bus, according to the county attorney’s office.

Chatman then fled the scene.

A Red Wing man and Ellsworth, Wis., woman wanted in connection with a shooting were arrested in western Wisconsin on Thursday.

Shawn H. Goplen 34, and Kari L. Blank, 36, were arrested at the Dollar General Store in Rice Lake, Wis., Thursday morning, according to the Dunn County sheriff’s office.

On Wednesday, the Pierce County, Wis., sheriff’s office entered into a high-speed chase with a Volkswagen Jetta that was stolen out of Woodbury. Deputies eventually discontinued the pursuit, but the car was believed to have been occupied by Golpen and Blank, the sheriff’s office said.

The Jetta was seen at the Rice Lake store on Thursday. It left the store and was lost by law enforcement, but it returned to the scene, at which point Golpen and Blank were arrested, according to the sheriff’s office.

The pair had been wanted in connection with a Sunday shooting that wounded a man in the leg in the town of Tainter, Wis.