OMAHA, Neb.— The driver of a semitrailer that crashed into Interstate 80 traffic last year, killing a Rosemount college student and seriously injuring several others, has been sentenced to 90 days in jail.

Seventy-year-old Robert Richmond, of Omaha, was sentenced Thursday after pleading no contest to misdemeanor motor vehicle homicide. Police say he failed to notice traffic had slowed on the interstate, slamming into the back of a car carrying several Creighton University students on their way to see a rare total solar eclipse.

A backseat passenger, 19-year-old Joan Ocampo-Yambing, of Rosemount, was killed. Five others were seriously injured in the four-vehicle pileup.

Ocampo-Yambing was a sophomore computer science major at the Catholic university in Omaha.

The Rosemount High School graduate was active in Campus Ministry and was a Dean’s Fellow in the College of Arts and Sciences.

St. Paul police officials have restricted when dogs can be used to physically apprehend a suspect, limiting it now to the most serious cases.

The revised policy specifies that police dogs can be used to catch someone who is fleeing and suspected of murder, manslaughter, aggravated robbery, kidnapping, criminal sexual conduct or drive-by shooting. It lists other types of felonies in which dogs cannot be used, except in certain circumstances.

The policy changes, which were mostly instituted in April, come on the heels of two high-profile dog bite cases in St. Paul.

In April 2017, the city approved a record $2 million to Frank Baker after he was mistaken for a suspect who police were seeking, and was bitten by a police dog and kicked by an officer. He was hospitalized for two weeks due to his injuries.

In September, Desiree Collins was taking her garbage out when she was attacked by a police dog looking for a male burglary suspect, according to a federal lawsuit that is ongoing. Beyond seeking financial damages, Collins’ lawsuit requested an order mandating changes to St. Paul police policy and training “in the use of effective warnings” and “proper leash techniques” to control dogs.

Sgt. Mike Ernster, a St. Paul police spokesman, said both the Baker and Collins’ cases “were major events for our department, but all K-9 apprehensions are reviewed by our command staff as they occur and this review looks at our policy and practice. When we note an issue, we review and adjust our policies to match our values and principles.” The policy was last revised in 2011.

Mayor Melvin Carter talked about revising police use-of-force policies at his inaugural speech in January, which Police Chief Todd Axtell said fit into work that had already been underway. Since Axtell became chief two years ago, there have been ongoing conversations about policies and about 100 policy updates, Ernster said.

The police department held community meetings and released its revised use-of-force policy in March. The K-9 policy is a separate document.

“While canines are a valuable part of our public safety toolbox, history has shown the importance of deploying them only with the highest standards of accountability, transparency, and respect for the communities they serve,” Carter said in a statement. “I appreciate the changes Chief Axtell has made to department policy to ensure we learn from, and never repeat the lessons of our country’s painful past.”

POLICY CHANGE WILL MEAN K-9s BITING SUSPECTS LESS OFTEN

The policy restrictions will mean police dogs are biting suspects less often while taking them into custody, Ernster said.

“The significant changes are to ensure that we are keeping our community and officers safe while only using K-9s to physically apprehend people when absolutely necessary,” he said.

The previous policy said St. Paul police dogs were primarily to be used to help find and apprehend suspects involved in serious or dangerous felonies, if that person posed “an immediate threat to the safety of officers,” or the person was actively resisting arrest or fleeing.

The revised policy prohibits the use of a police dog for physically apprehending someone solely because they are a suspect in the following type of felonies — auto theft, theft, fleeing in a motor vehicle, drug sales, sex trafficking, arson, burglary of a vacant building, or any felony when the suspect’s identity is known “if there is a reasonable likelihood that the person can be found later,” the policy says.

It says officers can use a dog to apprehend someone “who is displaying by their behavior the perceived intent to harm the officer, or another person … or whose actions are likely to result in death or serious bodily harm to the officer, or another.”

“Agencies such as St. Paul seem to go a step beyond the minimum standards of the law,” Ferland said. “I think that’s because the community wants the agency to adapt that way, they’re responding to it and I really applaud them.”

But there are trade-offs with a more restrictive policy — it could mean police are “not able to catch as many bad guys,” Ferland said.

LAWSUIT BROUGHT BY BYSTANDER WHO WAS BIT CONTINUES

Bob Bennett, an attorney who represented Baker and now Collins, noted the new policy mandates dog handlers to announce their presence throughout a search. The previous policy only said officers “shall repeat” their announcement in large or multi-level buildings.

In Collins’ case, officer Thaddeus Schmidt gave two K-9 warnings before putting his dog Gabe on a 20-foot leash, but he did not give additional warnings during his seven-minute search, according to a filing in the lawsuit. Collins was more than a block away and inside when Schmidt gave the warnings.

When Gabe “alerted” to finding a person, Schmidt did not shorten the lead or provide a warning and allowed the dog to proceed out of view around the Dumpster, Collins’ attorneys wrote Thursday in asking a judge to rule on the case.

Gabe bit Collins’ leg, knocked her to the ground and clamped down on her arm — the dog would not let go and it took more than 30 seconds to remove him, according to the filing.

Though Schmidt and Gabe “completed extensive training together” and placed 13th overall in national dog trials in 2016, “Schmidt knew that Gabe did not always respond to verbal commands, and he could not completely trust the dog,” Collins’ attorneys wrote in the filing. Gabe bit a homeless man near a bus shelter in 2016 and Schmidt was disciplined for “exhibiting poor control over his canine partner,” the filing continued.

The police department gave Schmidt a one-day suspension in the Collins case. The officer transferred back to patrol and Gabe was retired from police work, according to the filing.

The St. Paul city attorney’s office said Schmidt gave the required K-9 warnings before deploying the dog, did not give any command for Gabe to bite Collins, nor did he know the dog bit Collins until after it occurred.

The Washington County SWAT team was called in Friday to help Cottage Grove police arrest a combative theft suspect who rammed a police car and hid in a residential garage, refusing to come out.

Shortly after noon, police responded to a call of a theft in progress at the Cottage Grove Target on East Point Douglas Road.

When the officer arrived, the suspect, identified only as an adult male by police, had pushed a cart full of merchandise out of the store to a waiting vehicle, a Honda SUV that had been stolen from St. Paul.

When the officer attempted to stop the vehicle, the suspect drove off. As police pursued, a passer-by in a pickup truck attempted to help and veered toward the suspect’s car, missing and striking the police car instead.

Police continued the pursuit and maneuvered to stop the car, which caused the suspect to spin out. He continued driving through yards, hitting fences until he could go no farther in the 8600 block of Grenadier Avenue.

The suspect put his car in reverse and rammed the squad. He then fled on foot through the neighborhood.

Witnesses pointed officers toward an unlocked detached garage where they had seen the man duck inside.

Police set up a perimeter and called in the SWAT team.

After the suspect refused to speak with negotiators, SWAT officers threw tear gas through a window into the garage and went in after him.

They found him hiding in the trunk of a vehicle. He refused to follow any commands and was combative with arresting officers.

Cottage Grove Police Chief Pete Koerner said the victim was injured as he wrestled police on the broken glass of the garage floor. He was taken to Regions Hospital in St. Paul.

The incident remains under investigation and charges are pending, Koerner said.

The Minnesota State Patrol is investigating the crash of the pickup truck with the squad car.

Officials plan to resume classes Monday at a South Minneapolis high school where classes were canceled Friday because of an unspecified threat.

Minneapolis Public Schools and Minneapolis police, who are investigating the threat, declined to provide details about the threat that closed Washburn High School.

School district spokesman Dirk Tedmon said school staff became aware of the threat Thursday evening. Tedmon said that because security staff and police needed time to investigate, administrators decided to cancel school Friday.

In an update to families, school officials said they don’t know yet if the threat is credible, but they know who is involved and will follow district disciplinary procedures as necessary.

Minneapolis police spokesman John Elder said that he can’t provide any specifics about the threat because of the ongoing investigation.

A Woodbury man who held police off for two days in a Minneapolis hotel faces new felony charges.

Hennepin County prosecutors say 46-year-old Lincoln Bowman of Woodbury is charged with obstructing legal process and property damage. The charges came this week after prosecutors dropped previous kidnapping charges due to lack of evidence.

Police say they went to the Graduate Hotel on Washington Avenue near the University of Minnesota in January after a relative told them Bowman was threatening to harm himself and others. Bowman allegedly said he would hurt officers who came into the room and would set fire to the hotel. A SWAT team later ended the 38-hour standoff.

Court records show that Bowman failed to appear in court Friday. The court issued an arrest warrant.

REDWOOD FALLS, Minn. — An Olivia man faces a second-degree manslaughter charge after a 100-year-old woman died as a result of injuries she suffered after falling while in his care at the Sunwood Good Samaritan Center in Redwood Falls.

Francisco Javier Ramirez, 29, appeared Thursday in Redwood County District Court on felony charges of second-degree manslaughter and criminal neglect, and gross misdemeanor charges of mistreatment of a resident and criminal neglect.

The court ordered bail at $90,000 without conditions and $60,000 with conditions.

His attorney, Joel Solie, filed a motion seeking dismissal of the charges.

According to the criminal complaint, Ramirez was transferring the woman from a bath in a swing chair on Sept. 10, 2017, but allegedly doing so without following the protocols for which he was trained. She slid out of the chair and broke her ankle when it was about 5 feet in the air.

He did not have assistance from a second person as is required, and raised the chair to about 5 feet, its highest level.

He removed the seat belt holding the woman, and she fell from the chair, according to the complaint. The standard procedure is to lift to no more than 1 to 2 feet.

After the woman fell, Ramirez continued to disregard protocol by attempting to move her, according to the complaint, and he left her alone on the floor to obtain assistance.

The woman died Sept. 17 due to the injuries.

A man was stabbed to death Sunday morning in Newport in what is being described as an apparent domestic-violence incident.

The Washington County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the stabbing, which was reported at 6:30 a.m. Sunday at a home on the 400 block of 6th Ave.

Officials say that both a man and woman were transported to a hospital. The man did not survive.

Further details were not available Sunday.

Authorities are investigating the Sunday afternoon shooting death of a man who was hiding in a Medicine Lake house to escape capture by fugitive recovery agents.

The agents were outside the home in the 100 block of Peninsula Road talking to a man they were attempting to take into custody when they heard a loud bang from inside and called 911, according to a press release from the Hennepin County sheriff’s office.

Hennepin County sheriff’s deputies and Plymouth police officers responded to the 911 call at approximately 12:40 p.m. A man was found inside the house dead of an apparent gunshot wound.

The Hennepin County sheriff’s office is investigating and said that foul play is not suspected and nobody else was injured. The Hennepin County medical examiner’s office will make the identification and release the official cause of death at a later time.

Jason Sole says he saw way too much growing up on Chicago’s South Side.

Without warning, classmates would be permanently gone from school. In fifth grade, his friend killed her father to stop his attack on her mother. In sixth grade, a girl died of an asthma attack. In eighth grade, a boy on his basketball team who everyone looked up to was killed due to gang violence. And that was only the beginning.

“Trauma, upon trauma, upon trauma,” Sole said recently in St. Paul. “It was like we were dying and nobody seemed to care. But we had glimmers of hope.”

One glimmer for Sole was Chicago’s first black mayor Harold Washington. Now — decades later — Sole is working for St. Paul’s first black mayor, Melvin Carter. Carter hired Sole to be his director of Community-First Public Safety Initiatives.

Sole, 39, says he brings his experiences and academic expertise to the job he started in March.

As a teen, he joined a gang in Chicago, became a leader in it and sold drugs. He moved to Minnesota at age 18 and later wound up in prison. But he came out of it determined to find a different path.

He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and written his dissertation as he works toward his doctorate in criminal justice. He’s been an employee at non-profits in St. Paul and Minneapolis, and has been a criminal justice professor for nine years.

Sole also has been a vocal critic of police, including at protests after officer-involved shootings. He resigned as president of the Minneapolis NAACP to take his new job in St. Paul.

SEEKING FEEDBACK

Now, in his new job, Sole says he’s been taking a step back to hear what the community wants him to focus on.

He’s also told his own story at various St. Paul libraries and asks people for feedback about what his priorities should be. He has three more community sessions scheduled for this week.

At public safety break-out sessions at Carter’s State of Our City Summit on May 19, Sole said the topics raised most by participants were making it easier for people leaving prison to  re-enter the community, police accountability and the role of school resource officers.

At one of his speeches last week, about 16 teens came from various St. Paul neighborhoods to tell him they wanted him to focus on gun violence because “they don’t feel safe,” Sole said.

Carter campaigned last year on a platform of “Community-First Police Reform” and hiring Sole is his first major move to bringing those ideas to life.

“It really is about … re-wiring how we think of public safety,” Carter said. “For a generation … we’ve thought of public safety as really just as simple as more police officers, bigger jails, more prosecutors. And our goal is to really think about public safety as a function of safe spaces, trusting relationships, promising community for people who re-enter our community from incarceration and (to) really the bridge the gap that exists between … our law enforcement community and people all in our neighborhoods.”

Sole said he will continue gathering community feedback, which will inform where he begins his efforts. Carter said his goal is to for Sole, Police Chief Todd Axtell and City Attorney Lyndsey Olson to work together.

Sole expects to launch initiatives in July and he’s looking at creating a taskforce of community members who want to be involved.

FROM TEEN PAPER BOY TO GANG MEMBER

Sole said he’s been holding community gatherings at the libraries so people better understand his perspective about criminal justice and his vision to “set a new standard for what safety looks like.”

Speaking to more than a dozen people at the George Latimer Central Library on Wednesday, Sole told them that growing up in a poor neighborhood in Chicago meant “there just wasn’t a lot of hope because … there’s not a lot of options. You stop dreaming.”

Sole’s mother had her first child when she was 16 years old, but she never stopped going to school and was valedictorian of her high school class. She worked for Chicago’s downtown post office for 28 years.

His father has battled a heroin addiction since Sole was a kid, he said.

“When he wasn’t on drugs, he was amazing,” Sole said. “He could draw. He put a basketball in my hands and taught me how to master that game. … He just didn’t take the time to work on himself to be a good father … and it hurt me because … there were certain years where I needed my father in the home, rather than me acting like the man of the house.”

Research shows boys who don’t have dads in their lives are more likely to join a gang, Sole said. His “mother understood all this too well,” Sole said. She got him involved in basketball, which he excelled in, to try to keep him on the right track.

As an eighth-grader, to take a bit of financial burden off his mother, Sole got a job delivering the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper before school. But he encountered a man who he said was a pedophile and who tried to solicit him.

“It rocked my world,” Sole said, adding that he quit his job and told a friend he needed a gun for protection. “That same day, I said, ‘If i’m going to have a pistol, I might as well sell dope.’ This was in a matter of 24 hours that all these decisions happened and that’s when things changed for me.”

Sole said he joined a gang at 14 years old.

But after his mother found the stash of drugs he was selling, Sole said, “she didn’t want me to be lost in that world” and she she sent him to live with his aunt in Waterloo, Iowa. He became captain of his basketball team and graduated from high school.

EDUCATING HIMSELF IN PRISON, THEN COLLEGE

Sole enlisted in the Air Force, but said he was told just before boot camp that his severe asthma as a child disqualified him.

“Now I’m checked out, I got no aspirations, I got no hope, pistol’s on my waist,” Sole said. He moved to the Twin Cities.

At 20, Sole was shot in the leg at University Avenue and Victoria Street. He still has rods and screws in his leg from the injury.

He had run-in after run-in with police. He said he frequently faced excessive force at their hands.

Sole was convicted of possession of a firearm with an altered serial number in 1997, and drug possession in 2000 and 2006.

“When I made it to court, all they said was, ‘Black guy, 9mm, confirmed gang member from Chicago,'” Sole said. “Nothing about my commitment to the Air Force, nothing about four years of basketball, nothing about my leadership. … It didn’t make sense to me. … But this became my narrative. Now I’m a felon … and you know how that changes your life.”

In prison, as Sole read books by black authors, he said his eyes were opened to the “systemic issues” linking race, poverty, housing, education and incarceration.

“A lot of narrative is, ‘These kids live in bad neighborhoods,'” he said. “It’s not bad neighborhoods. They’re economically deprived. The only way I could make some money in my neighborhood is by doing what? Slinging drugs, probably robbing people. That’s it. That shouldn’t be the case for a young person, but it’s designed that way. When I look here in the cities, there’s not a lot of jobs for kids, but when I look in Eagan and Edina, there are ‘Help wanted’ signs everywhere and jobs for a number of kids.”

After being incarcerated, Sole said he thought he would return to St. Paul and get “a second chance.” Instead, he found himself turned down at every apartment he tried to rent because he was a felon.

He often passed Metropolitan State University and one day, feeling desperate, he went inside.

“It changed my life,” Sole said. He met a professor who told him, “I’m not going to let you go back to prison.”

Sole said he completed his four-year degree in three years and met the woman he later married. They now have two daughters, ages 6 and 11.

“I give them everything I wish I had,” Sole said. “I’m the father I wish I had.”

SOLE WANTS TO LOOK AT POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY

Sole wrote an autobiography, “From Prison to PhD: A Memoir of Hope, Resilience, and Second Chances,” which was published in 2014. And he said his “Humanize My Hoodie” project has received international attention. He started it to see “if he could reduce the threat perception of black people in hoodies,” Sole said.

He also has traveled around the country to do training at police departments. He said he wants to focus on police accountability in St. Paul and challenge “the institution.”

“If you can’t meet this standard, you got to find another occupation,” Sole said. “… I know it’s going to take rolling up the sleeves and really having some uncomfortable conversations. …  I didn’t come to this position to get comfortable. I came here to really do my most important work.”

City Councilmember Dan Bostrom, a retired St. Paul police sergeant, said he doesn’t know Sole or what his position involves. But he said police are already feeling as though they’re under constant scrutiny.

“Officers are in absolutely a no-win situation,” he said. “People want crimes solved, but nobody wants to cooperate.”

Bostrom said he believes the result is people not being held accountable for crime and feeling emboldened to continue on.

‘CLASSROOM JUST BECAME A LITTLE BIT BIGGER’

Sole has taught at Metro State and Hamline University. He stepped down an assistant professor to take his new job, but is still an adjunct instructor at Hamline.

Hamline President Fayneese Miller said the word that best describes Sole is “impressive.”

“What he brings to the classroom in the terms of his knowledge of his subject matter, he teaches it in a very authentic way,” Miller said. “He also connects it to theory and practice, so he knows his subject matter.”

In his new position, Sole said he wants “to give light to things that people aren’t even considering. My classroom just became a little bit bigger in this role.”

But for some matters, Sole adds, “I don’t have reinvent the wheel.”

He said it’s been proven around the country that gun violence is reduced when young people have jobs and things to occupy them — “if we give them an outlet, give them things to do, let them do some art, let them take some field trips, let them get a college plan,” Sole said. The challenge, he said, is convincing people to invest in these ideas.

Jean Muller, a Cathedral Hill resident who attended one of Sole’s speeches last week, said she isn’t fearful, but she hears from people who are concerned about safety in the skyways and on public transit.

“Is there anything we can do as citizens to help?” she asked Sole.

Sole said he understands why young people hang around downtown St. Paul or the skyways — they don’t have anywhere else to go or else to do. He did the same thing with his friends when he was 18 and 19 years old and he said he remembers “the looks” people would give them.

“There’s not places for them to hang out and just be kids downtown,” Sole said. He said he doesn’t know how difficult it would be to find a space for young people downtown, but he wants to talk to Carter about it.

IF YOU GO

Jason Sole has three community gatherings remaining at St. Paul Public Libraries.

• Tuesday, 5-7:30 p.m., Sun Ray, 2105 Wilson Ave.
• Wednesday, 5:30-8 p.m., Arlington Hills, 1200 Payne Ave.
• Friday, noon-2 p.m., St. Anthony Park, 2245 Como Ave.

The husband of a former St. Paul school administrator is expected to plead guilty next week for his role in stealing over $200,000 from a Wisconsin church.

Michael LaVenture, 47, is charged with five counts of felony theft. At a court hearing Monday in Hudson, Wis., attorneys said the case has been resolved. He now is scheduled to plead guilty and be sentenced June 11.

His wife, Kara Amundson-LaVenture, was sentenced in October to two years in prison for felony theft.

She admitted stealing at least $203,000 over about 10 years from New Centerville United Methodist Church, where she volunteered as treasurer. When charged in 2016, she was an assistant principal at Highland Park High School in St. Paul.

Amundson-LaVenture is expected to appear at her husband’s upcoming hearing, either by phone or videoconference.

She said when she was sentenced that she suffers from depression, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder, which made her buy specific things.

Dustin Hegner Royce was hurrying away from a “road-rage” altercation last fall when he ran a red light at the intersection of Grand Avenue and West Seventh in St. Paul.

That’s when he felt his vehicle “hit something,” the 29-year-old said from the witness stand inside a Ramsey County courtroom Monday morning.

“Did you know what you hit?” Hegner Royce’s attorney, Paul Baertschi, asked him during the plea hearing.

“At the time, I had a feeling,” Hegner Royce said, pausing. “I didn’t know, but I knew I hit something.”

Panicked, Hegner Royce said he didn’t stop to investigate what he struck. Instead took off toward Keenan’s Bar, where he knew his mother was working.

“And … (you knew) it could have been a person,” Baertschi continued.

“Yes, sir,” Hegner Royce responded.

Hegner Royce learned from media reports in the days following the collision that he had, in fact, hit a person.

Jose Hernandez Solano was riding his bike home from his job as a dishwasher at Brasa Rotisserie during the early morning hours of Nov. 26 when he was struck by the Hyundai Santa Fe Hegner Royce was driving. The car belongs to his mother.

Officers who responded to the scene found the 52-year-old lying motionless in the intersection.

He died from his injuries about a week and a half later.

Hernandez Solano had been wearing a helmet and his bike was equipped with a light.

‘I JUST PANICKED’

Hegner Royce admitted to causing and fleeing from the deadly collision in court Monday, when he pleaded guilty to one count of criminal vehicular homicide.

The courtroom was full of his family and friends, some of whom cried as he at times tearfully recounted his actions that night.

His mom, who is charged with aiding her son after the fact, listened from the back row. She kept her face buried in her hands as she waited for the proceedings to start.

Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Lee Odion Atakpu pushed Hegner Royce to explain why he didn’t get out to see if someone was hurt.

“Did you slow down or make any attempt to stop?” Atakpu asked.

“No, sir,” Hegner Royce replied. “I just panicked. I was scared. I regret it. I really do wish I would have stopped … I have no idea why I didn’t … I just panicked.”

DEFENDANT SOUGHT MOM AFTER STRIKING CYCLIST

After the collision, Hegner Royce admitted that he fled to Keenan’s bar for help, where his mom was bartending.

Authorities say Abbey Rose Hegner left her shift immediately, telling her boss his son’s girlfriend was suicidal.

She followed her son in another vehicle to his workplace in South St. Paul, Hegner Royce said Monday. Then he left his car there and drove away with his mom, Hegner Royce continued.

“Did you have anything to do with what happened to the car afterward?” his attorney, Baertschi, asked him.

“No, sir,” Hegner Royce said.

Police have been unable to locate the vehicle, Atakpu said Monday. He added that the Hyundai Santa Fe seems to have “disappeared.”

INVESTIGATION TOOK MONTHS

Authorities spent months investigating the hit-and-run before Hegner Royce and his mom were charged this past March.
They were initially arrested in December but both were released shortly thereafter.

Hegner denied any involvement in the incident at the time and told officers she sold her Hyundai Santa Fe four days before the crash to an “unknown Mexican or Somali male,” court documents say.

She was also reportedly overheard in a recorded jailhouse phone conversation telling someone that the police didn’t have any evidence in the case, particularly the suspect’s vehicle.

Previously, Hegner Royce told officers he had no memory of being at a Holiday near the crime scene that night, despite video footage placing him at the gas station, nor could he recall picking up his mother.

He admitted Monday that he lied. He said he stopped at the gas station en route to a bar that night for a few drinks after getting in a fight with his girlfriend. He needed a lighter to light a cigarette, he said. There, he ran into a man who’d recently been involved in a robbery at his aunt’s house, prompting Hegner Royce to hop back in his car and speed away so the man couldn’t follow him, he said.

A few minutes later, he got into an altercation with another vehicle that was fueled by “road rage,” Hegner Royce said.

He was fleeing that situation when he ran the red light and struck Hernandez Solano, he told the court.

He added that he had only one drink at his girlfriend’s house before the crash and was not intoxicated at the time.

“You don’t have any dispute that what happened to Mr. Hernandez was because of you (though),” Atakpu asked him during the hearing.

“No, sir,” Hegner Royce answered.

FACES UP TO FIVE YEARS IN PRISON

For his plea, the state agreed to dismiss a second count of criminal vehicular homicide previously facing Hegner Royce. Prosecutors also agreed to not ask the judge to sentence him to a longer prison term than is recommended by Minnesota’s sentencing guidelines.

With that in mind, the longest Hegner Royce would be sentenced to is about five years, according to Ramsey County District Judge Nicole Starr, the judicial officer presiding over the case.

Hegner Royce’s defense attorney plans to call witnesses to the sentencing hearing in hopes of convincing Starr that his client deserves a shorter sentence.

He also tried to convince Starr to release Hegner Royce from custody Monday as he awaits his sentencing hearing in mid-August, arguing that his client was no longer a flight risk because he’d pleaded guilty to the crime. He added that he had a child and two stepkids to support at home.

The prosecution pushed back, pointing to the concealment of the involved vehicle as indication of the lengths Hegner Royce might go to to avoid prison.

“The defendant knew or had reason to to know that law enforcement was looking for the vehicle,” Atakpu said. “He knew what was going on, or knew people were attempting to hide it … that suggests there are ongoing attempts to conceal what really happened here.”

Starr sided with the state and ordered Hegner Royce to remain in custody until his sentencing Aug. 15.

The next hearing in the case pending against his mother is scheduled for later this week. Abbey Hegner faces two counts of aiding an offender.

VICTIM WAS FATHER, AVID CYCLIST
Hernandez Solano was a father of three and one of 13 children. His three children all reside in Mexico near the city of Leon.

He came to Minnesota about 20 years ago for work.

Three of his colleagues were in the courtroom Monday wearing their Brasa shirts. His family, none of whom live locally, weren’t able to make it in time for the hearing, Atakpu said.

ST. JOSEPH, Minn. — The St. Joseph police chief has resigned effective immediately following an investigation by the city over allegations officials won’t disclose.

The St. Cloud Times reports that Joel Klein’s resignation was announced Monday night at the end of a City Council meeting. Klein did not attend.

Mayor Rick Schultz said the report from the city’s internal affairs investigation was delivered to Klein on May 23. The city received Klein’s written resignation on May 31. Klein had been on paid administrative leave since April 19.

Klein had worked with St. Joseph police since 2001 and became chief in 2013.

Schultz declined to comment on details about the investigation, but said the city will address workplace harassment training, whistleblower and retaliation policies, and a police audit system as a result of the probe.

A motorist was killed in wreck in Eagan late Monday, the Minnesota State Patrol said.

The crash happened on the westbound Highway 13 ramp to southbound Cedar Avenue around 10:15 p.m., the Patrol said.

The State Patrol is investigating. No additional information was released Tuesday morning.

A St. Paul man was sentenced to more than a decade in prison for his role in the murder of a father last spring.

Ramsey County District Judge Timothy Mulrooney sentenced Edward Lamonte Williams Friday to nearly 12 years in prison for his involvement in the fatal shooting of 36-year-old Brock Cecil Larson on May 9, 2017.

The sentencing came several months after Williams, 21, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting second-degree murder in the case.

He and three co-conspirators planned to rob Larson last spring under the guise that they wanted to buy marijuana from him.

One of Williams’ accomplices, Ryan Steven Fore, wound up shooting Larson multiple times during the robbery. The incident took place near 333 Burgess Avenue in St. Paul.

Fore pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in April and is scheduled to be sentenced in July.

Gabriel Kimbrough and Paris Sjostrand both pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting the murder.

Kimbrough was sentenced to about 13 years in prison for the conviction last month. Sjostrand is also expected to be sentenced in July.

At Kimbrough’s sentencing, Larson’s family described him as a man with a range of talents and interests, including building houses, cutting hair and cooking. Larson was most passionate about being a good father to his two-year-old daughter, they said, as well as an uncle, son and friend.

A Minneapolis man admitted to urinating in the water bottle of a Perkins restaurant co-worker who had rejected his romantic advances.

Conrrado Cruz Perez, 47, made the admission in Ramsey County District Court Monday when he pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of adulteration by bodily fluid.

Terms of the plea deal include placing Cruz Perez on probation for one year and requiring he follow any mental health recommendations outlined in his pre-sentence investigation, according to Melissa Loonan, the prosecutor for the city of Vadnais Heights who handled the case.

The state also agreed to drop the gross-misdemeanor count facing him in the case.

Perez’s defense attorney, Adriel Benjamin Villarreal, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

During his plea hearing, Cruz Perez admitted to urinating in a co-workers’ water bottle that he knew was intended for human consumption.

He said he did so because he needed to use the restroom, Loonan said.

Perez was arrested last March after his 42-year-old co-worker at a Perkins Restaurant and Bakery in Vadnais Heights reported to police that she was being harassed by a baker.

She told investigators that she noticed several occasions over the past few months when the water bottle she keeps at work tasted like urine, according to the criminal complaint filed against Cruz Perez.

She said the incidents started after she told Cruz Perez, her co-worker, that she only wanted to be friends after he expressed a romantic interest in her.

Cruz Perez initially denied tampering with the woman’s water bottle, but later admitted to once urinating in the container after investigators suggested they might conduct DNA testing on the bottle, the complaint said.

He said he had to go to the bathroom when the incident occurred but that the restaurant was too busy for him to use the facilities, authorities say.

A manager at Perkins said Cruz Perez worked as a baker at the restaurant but was fired following the allegations.

He is expected to be sentenced in late July.

Another protester who also scaled a protective barrier and climbed a truss to unfurl the banner above a section of lower-deck seats full of fans rejected a plea bargain offered by the Minneapolis City Attorney and is scheduled to go on trial in August.

Karl Zimmerman was convicted on one misdemeanor count of public nuisance and endangering public safety in connection with the stunt he and Sen Holiday performed Jan. 1, 2017, during Minnesota’s game against the Chicago Bears.

Hennepin County Judge Michael Burns also sentenced Zimmerman to 30 hours of community service to be completed by Dec. 1 and fined him $78.

Minneapolis City Attorney Susan Segal, in exchange for the guilty plea, dismissed gross-misdemeanor burglary and trespassing charges against Zimmerman.

Holiday rejected a similar settlement agreement and has demanded a jury trial.

“As a city we support the full and free exercise of rights under the First Amendment,” Segal said in a statement. “This office has made numerous attempts to resolve these two cases on fair and reasonable terms. While I made the decision to dismiss the gross-misdemeanor charge, public safety was put at risk in this situation, and protecting the safety of all is also of paramount importance.”

Zimmerman, 34, and Holiday, 28, wanted to use the charges to amplify their opposition to the North Dakota energy project by calling witnesses to testify about the dangers of climate change and how civil disobedience can affect environmental policy, according to court records.

The protesters essentially wanted to put the Dakota Access Pipeline on trial. The pipeline started interstate crude oil delivery in May 2017 when President Donald Trump signed an executive order to expedite completion of the project after environmental protesters had shut down construction for several months.

However, Burns blocked Zimmerman and Holiday’s witnesses from testifying and turning their criminal case into a political protest.

“Defendants could not have reasonably anticipated that their protest would avert the harms of climate change,” Burns ruled May 14. “Even if they could, defendants had numerous legal alternatives to breaking the law. Evidence about climate change and civil disobedience is not relevant to support a defense.”

Zimmerman and Holiday could not be reached for comment. Their lawyer, Tim Phillips, did not return messages seeking comment.

Prosecutors say Zimmerman and Holiday broke the law by staging a protest in a restricted area of the stadium while endangering the safety of several hundred fans who were forced to evacuate their seats during Minnesota’s 38-10 victory over the Bears.

Police say Zimmerman and Holiday refused commands to come down from a catwalk after they had rappelled about 20 feet down to unfurl a 40-foot vertical banner, which read “USbankDIVEST #NODAPL” during the New Year’s Day game.

Witnesses told police the pair hopped a locked 3-foot-high glass wall separating the truss from a pedestrian walkway and scaled a ladder to a catwalk above Section 125 behind the south end zone.

Zimmerman and Holiday dangled next to the vertical banner from the start of the second quarter until the end of the game. Zimmerman even answered his cellphone to conduct a brief interview with the Pioneer Press.

U.S. Bank Stadium manager SMG said the protesters used tickets to enter the game and smuggled nylon rope, carabiners and the banner through security and metal detectors. Surveillance photos showed Holiday and Zimmerman entering the mobile express lane at the Legacy Gate and later walking through the north main concourse about an hour before they scaled the third-level truss.

New column screen walls were constructed at the ridge truss where Zimmerman and Holiday scaled to hang their banner.

No one was injured during the protest, and the Vikings reimbursed displaced fans. When the game ended, the two protesters climbed down and were arrested without incident. They were jailed overnight and released while Minneapolis police investigated.

Zimmerman and Holiday held a news conference shortly after their release from jail to repeat their demands that U.S. Bank divest its financing deals with builders of the Dakota Access Pipeline, a 1,172-mile system that runs underground from western North Dakota to southern Illinois.

Several Native American tribes opposed construction, arguing the oil being delivered threatens sacred burial grounds and water supplies on tribal lands in North Dakota and Iowa.

Zimmerman and Holiday have refused to answer questions about how they planned the stunt in front of 66,808 football fans, their climbing expertise, tactics or safety risks to them and spectators.

This is not the first time Holiday was arrested for scaling a public structure to hang a protest banner.

After initially ignoring an officer’s commands to come down, Holiday eventually climbed back onto the bridge and surrendered, according to the complaint.

A St. Paul man was sentenced Tuesday for following a woman off a light-trail train and sexually assaulting her in a parking lot.

Tibesso Hamine Tufa, 36, received about four years in prison on one count of second-degree criminal sexual conduct.

He pleaded guilty to the charge in February.

Tufa sat down next to a 22-year-old woman on a light-rail train shortly after 10 p.m. on May 24, 2018.

The woman had just left work in Minneapolis. She told police she doesn’t like to sit next to anyone, but a man — later identified as Tufa — maneuvered into the window seat next to her.

When she tried to get away, he threatened to kill her, the woman told officers.

She exited the train at Western Avenue in St. Paul in an attempt to get away from the situation, but Tufa followed, according to court documents.

She called 911 shortly before Tufa attacked her in a parking lot.

He grabbed her phone before threatening to kill her if she screamed, legal documents say. Then he sexually assaulted her.

Tufa’s attorney, David Dellus Patton, could not be reached for comment on the case.

A motorcyclist attempting to evade law enforcement after a traffic stop late Tuesday morning crashed into a moving car while traveling an estimated 100 mph and is being treated for life-threatening injuries, Fridley police say.

According to a statement from Fridley police, a police sergeant attempted to stop a motorcyclist who had been driving recklessly, near 61st and University Avenues N.E. Once the sergeant had activated his emergency lights, the motorcyclist peeled away. The sergeant didn’t pursue the driver because of policy and concerns for public safety.

The motorcyclist ran stop lights and used turn lanes to speed around traffic, police said. Witnesses told police that as the motorcyclist reached the intersection with 49th Avenue N.E., he drove through a red light at at least 100 mph and struck the rear driver’s end of a car proceeding through the intersection.

The motorcyclist was not wearing a helmet.

The sergeant who had attempted to pull over the motorcyclist was the first to arrive at the scene and immediately began administering aid to the injured motorcyclist. The man was taken to Hennepin County Medical Center with life-threatening injuries, police said.

The driver of the passenger vehicle was treated at the scene for minor injuries and complied with the investigation. He is not suspected of being impaired, police said.

Fridley police, the Minnesota State Patrol and Anoka County sheriff’s office are handling the investigation.

A man who allegedly hacked into Minnesota government databases last year because he was angry over the acquittal of the officer who shot and killed Philando Castile was charged in an indictment unsealed Tuesday.

According to an indictment, Cameron Thomas Crowley, who goes by “Vigilance,” faces multiple charges, including three counts of intentional access to a protected computer, one count of intentional damage to a protected computer, and one count of aggravated identity theft. After the breaches, a person tweeting as Vigilance taunted authorities by writing, “Where am I? Clock is ticking.” The person tweeted that the Minnesota databases were targeted in retaliation for the acquittal of former St. Anthony police officer Jeronimo Yanez, who was found not guilty of manslaughter and other charges in the 2016 shooting of Castile, a black motorist, in Falcon Heights.

According to the indictment, Crowley accessed the state’s databases in June 2017 and intentionally transmitted programs, codes and commands to state computer servers, causing damages and a loss to the state of more than $5,000. Crowley is also charged with accessing databases at two unnamed universities and an unnamed school district.

Yanez shot Castile, a 32-year-old St. Paul elementary school cafeteria worker, during a July 2016 traffic stop after Castile told the officer he had a firearm. Authorities later discovered Castile had a gun permit. The shooting gained widespread attention after Castile’s girlfriend, who was in the car along with her then-4-year-old daughter, livestreamed its gruesome aftermath on Facebook.

The day after Yanez’s acquittal, Vigilance, who used The Joker as a profile picture, tweeted that the state databases were hacked. The next day, he tweeted that Minnesota State University Moorhead was hacked, and he tied the hacks to the Yanez case.

Over the next few days, he seemed to taunt authorities tweeting: “Sit back and watch the chaos unfold … More leaks coming for more injustices.” On June 21, 2017, he tweeted: “FBI is now investigating me. All I can say is good luck and this is not the end for me :).”

In a statement posted to Twitter, Vigilance said: “I have attacked large Minnesotan targets for one purpose: Retaliation for Ex-Officer Yanez’s acquittal. I will be back with other hacks. I will be back with other objectives. The FBI is set to investigate me. I am confident my identity is safe. I have a plan, one that I cannot detail just yet, to ensure my safety.”

Shortly after the hack, Minnesota State University Moorhead told students, faculty and staff that passwords would need to be reset. The university said non-sensitive but private data on students was accessed, as well as public data on faculty and staff. No financial information, passwords, Social Security numbers or academic records were stored on the hacked server or accessed, the university said.

The two defendants facing first-degree murder charges in the shooting death of University of Minnesota Duluth student William Grahek will receive separate trials.

St. Louis County District Judge Mark Munger last week denied a prosecution request to join the cases of 22-year-old Deandre Demetrius Davenport and 19-year-old Noah Anthony Charles King.

Munger said in an order that a joint trial with only one jury “would result in substantial prejudice to the defendants.”

“Here, the interests of justice would be affected by a joint trial because it is likely that the defendants will present antagonistic defenses regarding their knowledge of the other’s intent, who pulled the trigger and who intended to commit a specific crime,” the judge wrote.

Davenport and King face potential life sentences if convicted for their roles in the alleged botched robbery-turned-homicide on Feb. 14, 2017. Davenport is accused of shooting Grahek twice after the victim refused to turn over a safe containing drugs and cash, while King allegedly accompanied him and carried a wrench in case they encountered the victim’s dog.

A third defendant indicted by a grand jury on the first-degree murder charge, 20-year-old Noah Duane Baker, later pleaded guilty to intentional second-degree murder, testifying against Davenport and King, and was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

The trials for Davenport and King are likely to occur in late October and early November, though formal dates have yet to be scheduled.

St. Louis County prosecutors Jessica Fralich and Vicky Wanta had asked the judge to take the relatively uncommon step of combining the cases for trial. They wrote in a memorandum that Davenport and King each played an active role in planning the robbery, went to the scene together and acted in concert after Grahek was shot.

The prosecutors contended that a joint trial would minimize the impact for the victim’s brother and roommate, Devin Grahek, who is a key witness in the case. Further, they said, Davenport and King have raised the same arguments and taken the same defense positions to this point.

Additionally, he argued that a joinder would, in effect, introduce a “second prosecutor” into the case. He said it is anticipated that each defendant will attempt to place blame on the other — requiring that they attack one another’s arguments.

“Defendants have antagonistic defenses when the defenses are inconsistent and when they seek to put the blame on each other and the jury is forced to choose between the defense theories advocated by the defendant,” Benson wrote.

A joint trial is more appropriate in complicated cases involving complex facts and cases involving defendants working in “close concert,” argued Steve Bergeson, an attorney for King.

“Here, the facts and allegations are not so complex that a jury would have difficulty comprehending the evidence or the offenses,” he wrote. “The facts of the case support the allegation that Mr. Davenport was the sole shooter and therefore he did not act in close concert with Mr. King.”

Munger concurred, noting that it would be difficult for a single jury to “distinguish between the differences of the defendants’ individual aiding and abetting liability.”

“In this case, joinder of the defendants would result in substantial prejudice to the defendants,” the judge said. “As a result, the state’s motion for joinder must be denied.”

In addition to Noah Baker, his sister, 23-year-old Tara Rai Baker, also has pleaded guilty in the case. She was sentenced last month to six years of supervised probation after admitting that she lied to police in the aftermath of the shooting.

A fifth defendant, Xavier Alfred Haywood, 27, is charged with aiding an offender. He allegedly planned the robbery and later harbored his co-defendants at a Superior, Wis., hotel after Grahek was shot. He is due back in court on June 28.

The 22-year-old Grahek, who grew up in Centerville, was the son of a St. Paul police sergeant, Jon Grahek, who died of cancer in January.