A St. Paul man’s shooting early Tuesday morning in Maplewood appears to be accidental, investigators said.

Maplewood police responded to a call just after midnight that a man had been shot at 321 E. Larpenteur Ave., the department said in a statement Tuesday afternoon. Officers found 21-year-old Saldana Irving, who had been shot in the chest.

He was taken to Regions Hospital in St. Paul to be treated. Police said his condition is critical.

Investigators arrested 20-year-old Ramos Amaya of Maplewood on suspicion of reckless discharge of a firearm. He was later released from the Ramsey County jail. He has not been charged, though police said the shooting remains under investigation.

The preliminary investigation indicates the shooting was an accident and that there is no threat to public safety, said a Maplewood police statement.

Police are investigating how a gun ended up in the backpack of an 8-year-old girl at a school in St. Paul’s Payne-Phalen neighborhood.

The child was getting ready to go outside and play Monday afternoon when she placed her backpack on the floor and heard a thud, police spokesman Sgt. Mike Ernster said.

When the student opened the bag, she found a handgun inside and immediately told her teacher, Ernster said.

John A. Johnson Achievement Plus Elementary Principal Lisa Gruenewald responded immediately and secured the gun, she wrote in a letter to parents. She said the incident happened at the end of the school day.

“Nobody was threatened; nobody was injured,” Ernster said. “(The girl) told staff she didn’t know there was a gun in her backpack.”

Police were sent to the school just after 3 p.m. Monday. Officers found that the 9 mm pistol was loaded but that there was not a round in the chamber, meaning it would not have fired a bullet if someone had only pulled the trigger.

The gun belongs to the girl’s mother, Ernster said. The child told police she didn’t know how the gun got into her backpack, and she was released to her mother.

Gruenewald noted in the letter that “there are consequences for students in situations like this.”

“The safety of our students and staff is of paramount importance,” said Kevin Burns, St. Paul Public Schools spokesman. “We are taking this situation seriously, and ask our families and members of the community to help us by checking students’ backpacks and other items to help ensure schools remain as safe as possible.”

In April, a 7-year-old boy brought his mother’s loaded handgun, which had a trigger lock on it, to Highland Park Elementary School in St. Paul. It was found in the student’s backpack and was not used to threaten anyone, police said.

The boy’s mother had reported the gun stolen a few days earlier. Police said Tuesday that case remains under investigation.

A sergeant with the Ramsey County sheriff’s office stole cash and a phone charger while executing a search warrant in March at a Payne-Phalen home, authorities say.

A motion-activated surveillance camera in a bedroom in the 600 block of Geranium Street caught Jason Degerstrom stuffing a phone charger into his pocket, according to a criminal complaint filed Tuesday in Ramsey County District Court.

He also was seen fumbling through a purse before stuffing what authorities suspect was cash into his pocket, the document said.

A resident of the home said she had about $1,000 in cash in the purse. Only about $500 remained when county staff took inventory following the March 18 search.

The woman also reported a bag of silver dollars and a sports rookie card were missing.

Another resident said additional cash and shoes were missing and not listed in the inventory.

Degerstrom is charged with misconduct of a public officer, a gross misdemeanor, and two misdemeanor counts of theft.

No attorney was listed in court records. His next court appearance is scheduled for July 9.

The sheriff’s office placed Degerstrom on leave April 2 after learning of the allegations, according to a statement released by public information officer Roy Magnuson.

“The alleged conduct outlined in the charging documents is troubling and will not be tolerated by this administration,” the statement read. “We will continue to demand that our staff act within the law and uphold the trust placed in us by the community.”

With charges now filed, the department will begin an internal affairs investigation into what took place, Magnuson said.

The Hennepin County sheriff’s office investigated the suspected theft because it involved the Ramsey County Violent Crimes Enforcement Team.

The incident is not the first time Degerstrom has been tied to misconduct in his capacity with the sheriff’s office.

A 2016 lawsuit accused him of “negligence and wanton care” while driving an unmarked sheriff’s department SUV in 2013. The plaintiff said Degerstrom failed to come to a complete stop at a Fridley intersection and struck the plaintiff’s car, causing “severe” injuries.

The case was settled in 2017 for around $10,000, according to court records.

Two top community leaders of a commission that reviews misconduct complaints against St. Paul police officers resigned Tuesday, saying they have “repeatedly seen evidence” the mayor and his staff are not serious about supporting their work.

“By failing to adequately support the PCIARC’s (Police Civilian Internal Affairs Review Commission’s) mandate, the mayor and his appointees are denying St. Paul community members the opportunity to have meaningful participatory oversight of their police department,” chair Constance Tuck and vice chair Rachel Sullivan-Nightengale wrote in their resignation letter.

Mayor Melvin Carter thanked Tuck and Sullivan-Nightengale “for their service to our city. It will undoubtedly help inform our work moving forward,” he said in a brief statement Tuesday.

The commission votes on whether St. Paul officers should be disciplined for policy violations and forwards recommendations to the police chief. A decision on discipline then falls to the chief.

Tuck and Sullivan-Nightengale wrote the mayor “has never sought the PCIARC’s input on community policing concerns observed” in their work on the commission.

They also said Carter “consistently failed to use his platform to encourage community members to bring their policing concerns” to the commission.

EARLIER DEPARTURES OF POLICE-COMMUNITY RELATIONS STAFF

Since Carter became mayor in 2017 — after campaigning on a police reform initiative — there has been upheaval of key staff working on police-community relations.

Jason Sole, who Carter hired as director of St. Paul’s Community-First Public Safety Initiative, departed earlier this year. And Jessica Kingston, who was director of the city’s Human Rights and Equal Economic Opportunity Department, left after reaching a $250,000 legal settlement with the city last year.

When the Police Civilian Internal Affairs Review Commission was reconstituted in 2017, its supervision and administration moved from the police department to Kingston’s department.

Kingston filed a complaint with the state Department of Human Rights, in which she said the police department prevented public complaints from getting to the civilian review board, concealed evidence obtained during board investigations and prevented the board from gathering its own evidence.

In their Tuesday resignation letter, Tuck and Sullivan-Nightengale wrote the PCIARC “has voiced concerns that the St. Paul Police Department is not providing a full accounting of civilian complaints.”

The police department previously said they submitted every complaint to the civilian review board that was required by state law and an agreement with the NAACP.

OUTLINING THEIR CONCERNS

Tuck and Sullivan-Nightengale wrote in their resignation letter that “despite the mayor’s statement that he would ‘empower the Civilian Review Board [PCIARC] to act as a strong check on policing in St. Paul,’ he has failed to encourage community participation.”

They said Carter’s staff did not “adequately publicize openings” on the PCIARC, which resulted “in a severely limited applicant pool of community members.”

The former chair and vice chair also said they object to a proposed plan to “triage” civilian complaints about police. It would make the the commission’s “process more complicated and difficult for the community to navigate,” they wrote.

MAYOR SAYS HE CAN’T ‘PRE-COMMIT’ TO FUNDING REQUEST

Tuck and Sullivan-Nightengale raised concerns about funding for the commission. They said Carter not endorsing “even a small amount of urgently needed additional funding … is further evidence that he is not serious about the work of the PCIARC.”

In April, Tuck wrote to Carter and told him the PCIARC needs at least $50,000 to move forward with community outreach and other focus areas. She noted the commission’s budget is currently $16,000 and asked if Carter would be providing the necessary funds in next year’s budget.

Carter responded to Tuck, saying they were in the beginning stages of drafting the proposed 2020 budget. He asked her to continue working with city staff to develop the request for the Human Rights department’s budget proposal.

“The city budget is a comprehensive document, and subject to an endless set of demands and variables,” Carter wrote. “As such, I cannot pre-commit to specific investments outside of the full picture and/or ahead of the (community) engagement process.”

BOARD RECONSTITUTED WITHOUT OFFICERS

The St. Paul Police Civilian Internal Affairs Review Commission was formed in 1994. It was reshaped in 2017, after racial and social justice activists urged that officers be removed from the commission.

The city council voted in December 2016 to have a community-only panel. They increased the number of commissioners from seven to nine, and eliminated the positions of two officers who were commissioners.

Commissioners, who are volunteers, are paid $50 per monthly meeting, though Tuck said at a community forum in April that they put in many hours of work.

Tuck and Sullivan-Nightengale wrote on Tuesday that because of their concerns, they believe resigning from the commission “is our only ethical alternative as representatives of the St. Paul community.”

FOSSTON, Minn. — A northwestern Minnesota man who was found fatally injured Sunday on a curb in Fosston was apparently hit with a landscaping block, according to a criminal complaint charging his brother with murder.

Nicholas Patrick Hauge, 28, is being held without bond on the charges he murdered 19-year-old Timothy Hauge. An autopsy revealed Timothy Hauge died of blunt-force trauma to his head, and his death was ruled a homicide resulting from an assault by another person, a criminal complaint said.

Two Polk County sheriff’s deputies were called to the intersection of Eighth Street Northwest and North Mark Avenue at 3:44 a.m., a press release said. A caller reported seeing a man throwing things at a man who was passed out on a lawn, according to a criminal complaint. Another 911 caller reported someone was trying to break a window at 412 Eighth St. N.W., the complaint said.

Nicholas Hauge, of Fergus Falls, was standing in the road with blood on his arms, jeans and T-shirt when the deputies arrived, the court document said.

Timothy Hauge, of Fosston, was lying in the road with a large gash on his head, officers said. There was a significant amount of blood in the gutter next to him.

Timothy Hauge did not have a pulse, but deputies reported his body was warm. They performed CPR but were unable to revive him.

Nicholas Hauge told deputies: “Just kill me.” He was uncooperative as they placed him in a patrol car for transport to the Northwest Regional Corrections Center, according to the court document. He smelled of alcohol, the officers said.

The initial 911 caller said she saw a man throw something at a man lying on the ground who had been moaning outside her home, the complaint said. The woman said she was unsure what he threw at the motionless man, but it sounded like a pot. She thought he also threw something at her home.

An investigator said a landscaping block was found outside a bedroom window about 20 yards from Timothy Hauge’s body. The block was about a foot long, 6 inches wide and 3 to 4 inches thick, the complaint said. There was blood covering the corner and two sides of it, according to the investigator.

Nicholas Hauge was charged with two counts of second-degree murder Monday.

Prosecutors intend to seek an aggravated sentence because Timothy Hauge was treated “with particular cruelty,” according to the complaint. Cases where a victim is treated with “particular cruelty” act as exceptions to sentencing guidelines under Minnesota state law. It would allow for Nicholas Hauge to receive a harsher punishment than the maximum sentence if he pleads guilty or is convicted.

He is currently facing two counts of driving while impaired in St. Louis County. Nicholas Hauge was not allowed to drink as a condition of his release.

He appeared in court Tuesday morning but another appearance related to the murder charges has not yet been scheduled.

RED LAKE, Minn. — A teenager has been sentenced to 22 years in prison for killing a man he mistook for a rival gang member on the Red Lake Indian Reservation of northern Minnesota.

Eighteen-year-old Michael Whitefeather pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in December for the fatal shooting of Anthony Wells in April 2018.

A federal criminal complaint says Whitefeather and other members of the Back of Town gang were driving around looking for rival gang members when they spotted two men walking in a parking lot near the Red Lake Middle and High Schools. Whitefeather chased one of the men, who was Wells, caught up with him, assaulted him and shot him in the face.

Whitefeather also received five years of supervised release during sentencing Monday.

Parents of young girls molested by convicted Woodbury school bus aide Harvey Kneifl watched in court on Wednesday morning as he was sentenced to more than 20 years in prison for his crimes.

Washington County District Court Judge Greg Galler’s sentencing came one week after Kneifl, 72, of Woodbury, was sentenced to 30 years in prison for slashing his wife’s throat.

“This human is disgusting beyond words,” one of the parents wrote in a victim-impact statement read in court by the Washington County attorney’s office’s Linda Wikoff. “He is not a man, he is a monster.”

Kneifl was convicted in March on three counts of criminal sexual conduct after a trial in the case. He was originally charged with groping 10 young girls over their clothes as they rode a South Washington County school district school bus; each victim was age 5 or younger. At the time of the incidents, in January and February 2017, Kneifl was working as a bus aide on a route for pre-K and special-needs children.

“My daughter’s innocence and self-esteem was taken away from her at such a young age, and it will take a lifetime to get it back,” the parent wrote in the statement read by Wikoff. “Since this horrific nightmare began, my daughter has had significant difficulties around older men — even the ones she loves so dearly, family or not.”

NO REMORSE, NO APOLOGY

Assistant County Attorney Tom Wedes told Galler that Kneifl had “accepted no responsibility, shown no remorse and had offered no apology” for his actions.

“He is a narcissistic, self-absorbed, predatory individual,” he said. “He alleges that the detectives put the children up to this. … He has blamed everyone but himself. We hope the healing won’t take long, but it could take a lifetime.”

After the hearing, Wedes said he was happy that the case has been resolved, so the victims “can begin to heal.” But, he added, “for what he did, there is never enough time.”

WIFE’S MURDER LENGTHENS SENTENCE

Kneifl’s attorney, Christopher Keyser, said Kneifl’s 20-year sentence on Wednesday would have been significantly reduced had Kneifl not pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and been sentenced last week in the killing of his wife, Julie A. Kneifl, also 72.

Officers discovered Julie Kneifl’s body on the morning of Jan. 31 when they went to the couple’s apartment in the St. Therese of Woodbury senior housing complex to check on the whereabouts of Harvey Kneifl, who had failed to appear in court on the criminal sexual conduct charges. Officers found him in a shower, bleeding from a neck wound; two knives were on the floor close to him.

If Kneifl had been sentenced chronologically, with his lack of criminal history, per sentencing guidelines, “he would be looking at presumptive probation on the first two counts and a 60-month sentence on the third count,” Keyser said. “It’s not unreasonable to think the court might have given (a departure) to him.”

In court last week, Kneifl’s attorney in that case, Nathan Sosinski, said his client “thought he was going to prison” on the criminal sexual conduct charges. “He was concerned about who was going to take care of her, and he was worried about her being a burden,” Sosinski said. “That was what was in his head.”

Said Keyser: “It just makes the whole case very sad, especially knowing that probation was within our reach. It was right there.”

KNEIFL REMAINS SILENT IN COURT

The attorney said Kneifl maintains that he is not guilty of the three charges.

When asked if he wanted to speak in court Wednesday, Kneifl, wearing handcuffs and a blue jail-issued shirt and pants, replied: “No thanks.”

In an interview after the hearing, Assistant Washington County Attorney Imran Ali said Kneifl was a “predator (who) targeted and tricked these young girls into thinking he was their friend.”

Kneifl “never took responsibility for his actions, nor did he apologize to these parents or children,” he said.

The sentence, which will be served concurrently with his second-degree murder sentence, “ensures justice for the victims and the defendant’s incarceration protects the public from these unspeakable actions,” Ali said.

Galler also fined Kneifl $12,000. He gave victims 60 days to submit restitution claims.

Parents of the victims declined to be interviewed after the hearing.

“Despite the heartbreak and devastation, I know my daughter, as well as the other young girls, will grow into the strongest women they can possibly be with the unconditional love and support they receive from their family and friends,” a parent wrote in the statement read by Wikoff. “I am so thankful that this day has finally come so that we can all heal from this nightmare and go on with our lives.”

A Sauk Rapids man facing financial troubles called an acquaintance for a loan, then pulled a gun on him, authorities say.

Joshua Lee Masloski, 30, called his brother’s friend in September to see whether he could front him some money because he was broke, according to a criminal complaint filed via warrant Wednesday in Ramsey County District Court.

The acquaintance offered a $40 loan and asked to meet at the Denny’s in the 1600 block of University Avenue in St. Paul.

He told police that he and his wife were waiting in their car in the restaurant’s parking lot when Masloski approached. When he reached their vehicle, Masloski pulled out a handgun and pointed it at the man’s chest, the complaint said.

“You know what the (expletive) this is. Give me everything,” the man said Masloski demanded.

The acquaintance tried to drive away, but Masloski held on to the car’s window until it approached the entrance to Interstate 94 on Snelling Avenue.

The complaint charges Masloski with one count of first-degree aggravated robbery. Police are still looking for him.

Masloski has convictions for drug possession, drunken driving and theft.

Four deaths and a more than a dozen overdoses in the east metro in recent days are suspected to be linked to a “bad batch” of drugs that could be laced with the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl.

Two people died in Washington County and five overdosed in St. Paul in the last 24 hours alone. Police also say two earlier deaths and four overdoses in Washington County, as well as six overdoses Saturday in South St. Paul, also could be tied to tainted drugs.

Hennepin County has also seen a spike according to a sheriff’s office spokesman there.

“As with every overdose death, I have directed our Drug Task Force to use every available resource in an attempt to find those responsible for spreading this deadly substance,” Washington County Sheriff Dan Starry said in a statement late Wednesday.

Police across the Twin Cities issued alerts Wednesday as they learned of the overdoses and deaths. The Overdose Detection Mapping Application (ODMAP) program alerted police in St. Paul and Washington County to the spike.

“Our hope is that people who are susceptible to these overdoses would heed this warning and protect themselves, so that they have the opportunity to live another day and get help for themselves and overcome their addiction,” said Sgt. Mike Ernster, a St. Paul police spokesman.

Police have not definitively tied all the overdoses together. But the drugs responsible for incidents in St. Paul, South St. Paul and Washington County are all suspected to have been laced with some other illicit chemical, possibly fentanyl.

Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic narcotic that is 10 times more powerful than other opioids. Other drugs are often cut with fentanyl to make them more powerful with deadly consequences.

Fentanyl was a factor in 91 percent of the fatalities related to synthetic opioids in 2017. That year, 422 people died of opioid overdoses and about 44 percent were caused by synthetic opioids.

Details of the Washington County incidents were not available Wednesday. The St. Paul overdoses happened in four locations over a 15-hour span on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.

Four occurred between 6:50 and 8:20 p.m. on Tuesday — two in the 1200 block of Randolph Avenue, and one each in the 1900 block of East Cottage Avenue, and near Dale Street and Carroll Avenue.

Another person overdosed Wednesday about 9:30 a.m. in the 600 block of Western Avenue.

Officers from the St. Paul Police Community Outreach and Stabilization Unit are going to places where heroin use is common to warn people about the spike in overdoses and offer them information about chemical-dependency resources, Ernster said.

Police are asking people to take the following steps:

• Call 911 immediately if they or someone they know is overdosing.
• Use naloxone (Narcan) if a person is having a suspected overdose.
• Tell people who use heroin about the bad batch going around.
• Seek help through a chemical-dependency treatment center.

There is a “Good Samaritan Law” in Minnesota that protects people from being charged or prosecuted if they act in good faith while seeking medical assistance for someone who is overdosing, Ernster said.

Six men are suspected to have overdosed on opioids at a Bircher Avenue home in South St. Paul on Saturday. Three men were found on the lawn outside the small house and three more inside. Emergency personnel used naloxone, a drug that reverses overdoses, to save them.

A Metro Transit police officer was injured in a small explosion before a training exercise in St. Paul on Wednesday afternoon.

Paramedics took the officer to Regions Hospital with non-life threatening injuries, said Howie Padilla, Metro Transit spokesman.

The K-9 officer was preparing for a police dog bomb detection training exercise about 3:30 p.m. at 515 N. Cleveland Ave., which is the Metro Transit Overhaul Base, where bus maintenance and repairs occur.

“He was putting out a device with a small amount of explosives and, for whatever reason, the explosives ignited,” said Padilla, who added an investigation is underway into what happened.

The St. Paul police bomb squad was called out and neighboring buildings were evacuated as a precaution.

Officials did not immediately describe the injuries of the officer, who has been with Metro Transit for seven years. His K-9 partner was still in the vehicle at the time of the incident.

A 16-year-old and his older brother forced their way into a family’s apartment in Mounds View last week and robbed the tenants at gunpoint, authorities say.

Sallu Dion Sarjoh, his 20-year-old brother, Emmanuel Oliver Toby, and another male knocked at the door of an apartment on Woodland Drive around 7:45 p.m. Friday, according to charging documents filed Wednesday in Ramsey County District Court.

When a 23-year-old tenant answered, the suspects allegedly pointed guns at him and threatened to shoot unless he turned over everything he had.

The tenant handed over his wallet, Apple Watch, iPhone and $2,000 in cash he had sitting on a dresser.

The intruders also rummaged through his fiancee’s purse and looked under their mattress before leaving, the tenant later told police.

The man’s three children were in the living room at the time of the burglary, and his fiancee was in the kitchen.

A security camera in the victim’s bedroom showed Sarjoh, Toby and the third suspect pushing the tenant around, the charging documents said. Authorities have not yet identified the third suspect.

Sarjoh was also reportedly seen pointing a handgun at the victim’s back.

Sarjoh was charged Wednesday with one count each of first-degree aggravated robbery and first-degree burglary. Ramsey County prosecutors will ask a judge to try the teen as an adult.

Toby, who was not seen on video holding a gun, faces one count of first-degree burglary.

Both suspects declined to speak to law enforcement after their arrests.

Sarjoh’s mother declined to comment on the allegations Wednesday, and his public defender could not immediately be reached for comment.

Court records did not list an attorney for Toby.

The tenants told police they did not know the people who robbed them but might have seen them in the neighborhood. The security video helped authorities identify the two brothers, who live about a block and a half away.

The tenants waited five hours before calling police, saying the robbers threatened to “do a lot worse” if they reported the crime.

The man whose body was found in a wetland area in May Township in northern Washington County over the weekend died as a result of homicide, officials said Wednesday.

Authorities said the man is Jose Natividad Genis Cuate, 47, of Minneapolis.

Cuate, whose body was found Sunday afternoon in the 17600 block of Manning Trail, died as a result of a homicide, according to the Ramsey County medical examiner’s office.

It was unclear when Cuate died.

The Washington County sheriff’s office is investigating and is being assisted by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

No further information was available Wednesday afternoon.

A Minneapolis teenager was sentenced to more than 32 years in prison for killing three people when he crashed a stolen SUV into their pickup.

Eighteen-year-old Dayquan Hodge was sentenced Wednesday after pleading guilty to three counts of criminal vehicular homicide.

The Star Tribune reported that Hodge apologized in court to families of the victims. Authorities say Hodge sped up to 105 mph through South Minneapolis before crashing into the pickup outside Matt’s Bar on Cedar Avenue last September.

Killed were the pickup’s driver, 64-year-old Kenneth Carpentier of Bullhead City, Ariz. his wife, 65-year-old Sheryl Carpentier; and another passenger, 48-year-old Kimberly Gunderson of Minneapolis. Four passengers in Hodge’s vehicle suffered serious injuries.

Court documents say Hodge had smoked marijuana as he drove the SUV. State troopers had been chasing Hodge but ended the pursuit.

Authorities say a man has been charged with accidentally starting the May fire that destroyed a popular park pavilion restaurant on the Minneapolis Chain of Lakes.

According to the Hennepin County attorney’s office, Nouh Elmi, 23, was charged Wednesday with a single count of negligent fire causing property damage of more than $2,500. Elmi was charged by summons and will make a first court appearance on July 10.

According to the criminal complaint, the fire was started by the carelessly discarded coals of a hookah, a type of water pipe used for smoking tobacco.

The fire in the pavilion, which housed Lola’s on the Lake restaurant, started in the early morning hours of May 16.

Investigators initially believed the fire on Bde Maka Ska (Lake Calhoun) was started by a lightning strike. But surveillance cameras showed a man and a woman near the pavilion. The man appeared to be sparking a fire as the woman stood by.

The images were publicized, and the woman contacted authorities and identified the man, Elmi.

The criminal complaint says the video also showed Elmi and the woman approaching Lola’s around 2:45 a.m. and then sitting down at a table near the pavilion. Elmi took a hookah out of a bag and then managed to light the pipe despite an approaching thunderstorm. About 20 minutes later, the video showed Elmi dumping the hookah’s embers behind several trash cans next to the pavilion.

The area was protected from the rain but not the wind, igniting a fire that destroyed the pavilion.

Damage was estimated at $2 million and the structure was recently razed.

FARIBAULT, Minn. — A southern Minnesota man is accused of a bias crime for allegedly spraying a Somali-American teenager and her siblings with a garden hose while he yelled racial slurs.

Eighteen-year-old Zachariah Manahan of Faribault was charged Monday with felony stalking committed because of bias as well as misdemeanor charges of damaging property and disorderly conduct.

The 15-year-old girl told police that Manahan had sprayed her and her siblings.

The girl also said Manahan sprayed water through an open second-floor window of her family’s home. Police say a rug, a piece of furniture and the walls were drenched.

According to the complaint, Manahan told police he was trying to spray a fence, not his neighbors.

Manahan remains in jail. His public defender did not immediately return a phone message seeking comment Wednesday.

When two guys in a beer truck saved a man from jumping off a St. Paul overpass last year, it wasn’t only his life they changed.

Kwame Anderson started getting countless messages from people telling him about their own struggles, but he didn’t know how to help them.

He contacted a local nonprofit to learn more about mental health resources. Then, he traded in his day shift at BreakThru Beverage for an overnight one, which allows him to talk to teenagers and adults during the day about suicide prevention and depression awareness.

Anderson, who built rapport with the man on the Earl Street bridge over Interstate 94 and offered him beer in August, said that day ended up altering his life’s path.

“It’s molded everything that I’m doing now,” Anderson said Wednesday, after Police Chief Todd Axtell presented him and eight other men with awards for saving the lives of strangers and, in one case, catching a suspect.

Axtell called them each “ordinary heroes going above and beyond.”

Jason Gaebel, who worked with Anderson to talk the man off the bridge over Interstate 94 in August, said he saw the man a few weeks ago when he was delivering beer. The man recognized Gaebel, 45, and gave him a hug and shook his hand.

The St. Paul police chief is honoring nine community members who helped others. These beer deliveryman saved a man from a highway overpass by talking him down. https://t.co/odsKP1AjSc

— Mara Gottfried (@MaraGottfried) June 5, 2019

RIVER RESCUES AND A SUSPECT DETAINED

Axtell honored six other men for rescuing women from the Missisippi River in separate incidents.

Noah Buchl and Khalid Almutairi went into the river and pulled a distraught woman to safety in July. Nicholas Pemberton and Abdulrahman Bakhdyed ran up a river bluff to call 911 and direct officers to the woman’s location.

In September, Isaac Gibbons and William Steenson were fishing near Hidden Falls Regional Park past sunset when they saw what appeared to be a person bobbing in the river.

From their boat, Steenson scooped the drowning woman out of the river and Gibbons brought the boat to shore. Gibbons gave the woman chest compressions and they called 911. They also received awards.

Meanwhile, Thomas Smith, 61, found an intruder when he went to his girlfriend’s residence to do renovation work in February.

He pulled a knife on the man and directed him not to move, while calling 911. A razor blade and knife were found near the suspect, whom prosecutors charged with burglary.

Smith “demonstrated uncommon courage and bravery in detaining” the suspect, Axtell said.

GOING ON TO HELP  MORE PEOPLE

Anderson, 30, now is an advocate for PrairieCare Child & Family Fund, which provides grants to schools and nonprofits for mental health initiatives. Anderson has been talking to students and adults about his experience helping the man on the St. Paul overpass.

When he addressed the group’s gala, “he made sure everyone who was there had their phones out and that they entered the national suicide hotline (800-273-8255) on their phone,” said Nancy Burton, the nonprofit’s executive director.

“That was the biggest thing that I’ve thinking about — how can I reach out to another person and prevent them from getting to this point,” Anderson said Wednesday.

Eleven years ago, a woman struck and killed a law enforcement officer’s wife while driving drunk in Mounds View. Last week, she was busted drinking and driving again, this time with her 10-year-old daughter in the car, authorities say.

Police arrested Elizabeth Renee Jacobson on May 29 after someone from Trappers Bar & Grill in Lino Lakes called to report the 34-year-old arrived at the restaurant drunk with her daughter in tow, according to a criminal complaint filed in Anoka County District Court.

The caller went on to say Jacobson’s estimated blood-alcohol concentration registered at 0.2 on a handheld Breathalyzer. The legal limit to drink and drive in Minnesota is 0.08.

Prosecutors charged Jacobson, of Brooklyn Center, on Friday with first-degree DUI. She admitted to an officer she drank two beers, two shots and a cocktail before picking up her daughter that day, the complaint said.

Jacobson’s BAC was tagged at 0.15 when she was tested at the Lino Lakes Police Department around 7 p.m., about an hour after the caller alerted police.

The incident comes just over a decade after Jacobson cried as she told the family of Margaret Lopez she was sorry for taking away the love of their life. Jacobson was speaking at her sentencing hearing in Ramsey County District Court in 2009.

Jacobson killed Lopez and injured her husband, a Ramsey County sheriff’s deputy, when she crashed head-on into Lopez’s squad car while driving the wrong way on U.S. 10 near Interstate 35W in Mounds View on New Year’s Day in 2008.

Her blood alcohol level was 0.19 at the time.

Lopez was on a ride-along with her husband, sheriff’s deputy Joseph Lopez, at the time. She died at the scene and her husband suffered a broken arm.

Jacobson, who was known as Elizabeth Rhodes before she was married, received a prison sentence of four years and 10 months on one count of criminal vehicular homicide.

“I wish I could have talked to myself one year and three months ago to tell myself what I know now,” Jacobson said at her sentencing in March 2009, which was shortly after she became a mother.

Jacobson was released from the Minnesota Correctional Facility in Shakopee in June 2012. Her probation ended in 2014. Inmates in Minnesota prisons generally serve two-thirds of their sentences behind bars and the rest on supervised release in the community.

Jacobson is scheduled to make her next court appearance in her new case June 26. No attorney was listed for her in court records and she could not be reached for comment.

A recent cluster of drug overdoses across the Twin Cities metro has authorities scrambling to find the source of any potent drug and to prevent others from suffering the same fate.

Minneapolis police said Thursday they have responded to 65 overdoses in the past nine days. The state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension notes in the past two weeks there have been 163 drug overdoses — 14 of them fatal — among the 87 Minnesota police agencies who take part of the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program.

Law enforcement agencies from across the metro area are stepping up coordination efforts and throwing more resources at the problem.

Minneapolis police have created an overdose coordinator position within the department’s homicide unit to review all cases and are increasing patrols in high-overdose areas. In South St. Paul, search warrants at one overdose site tell how investigators are searching for the supplier. And St. Paul police, like many other agencies, are focusing on letting people know about the threat of a “bad batch” of potent heroin.

Time is of the essence, authorities said.

“This is not a war on drugs, this is a fight for our families,” said Minnesota’s U.S. Attorney Erica MacDonald. She hosted U.S. drug czar Jim Carroll on Thursday for a roundtable discussion on the state’s response to drug use and addiction.

WHAT IS A ‘BAD BATCH’?

Police suspect that laced drugs have contributed to the spike in recent overdoses.

When heroin or prescription drugs are laced with a substance like fentanyl, for example, the risk of overdose and death is much higher, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

After the roundtable discussion, Carroll told reporters that overdoses brought on by these drugs are often accidental.

“What we’re seeing in some of these situations are people taking a drug that they think might be cocaine or might be a Xanax pill, and they might not even realize that the deadly fentanyl drug is in there,” Carroll said.

He added that many of the drugs that kill Americans come from outside the U.S.

A DEADLY TALLY

Washington County has had a rash of deadly overdoses. One person died of an overdose Wednesday in Cottage Grove, which also had four non-fatal overdoses in the past two weeks. Another person died of an overdose Tuesday in neighboring St. Paul Park, which came after a May 29 overdose death in Lakeland and one in Lake Elmo on May 23.

Sara Halverson, commander of the Washington County sheriff’s office, called the spike “alarming” on Thursday and said the county’s drug task force is working with local agencies to find the source.

Cottage Grove police Capt. Randy McAlister is not sure if the overdoses in his community are related to those nearby, but he said he would not be surprised if they are.

In Minneapolis, the city recorded 50 overdoses in the past week alone — an all-time high. One of them was deadly.

The overdoses were caused by different types of drugs, such as counterfeit oxycontin, potent heroin and other unknown substances. Minneapolis police carry naloxone and have administered it when applicable.

WHAT AGENCIES ARE DOING

Law enforcement agencies have sent out “spike alerts” in the past few days to alert the public about the overdoses. Carroll said these messages are also meant to reach people who are addicted and let them know that the street drugs they buy may yield a “lethal dose.”

“The fact that we’re seeing a sudden spike certainly indicates that there’s something happening right now, on the streets, that people need to be concerned about,” Carroll said.

Investigators in Dakota County have issued search warrants over the six overdoses this past weekend at a South St. Paul home.

After six men overdosed, authorities confiscated two cell phones during a search of the home at 220 Bircher Ave. in that city. And earlier this week, the Dakota County Drug Task Force obtained another search warrant to examine the phones in an attempt to locate the source of the substance, which some believe was laced with the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl.

Meanwhile, in a less than two-hour span on Tuesday in St. Paul, four people overdosed on heroin suspected to be laced. Another person OD’d the next morning. St. Paul police haven’t determined what the heroin was laced with.

St. Paul police spokesman Sgt. Mike Ernster said the department is less focused on making an arrest and more concerned about letting the public know about the situation and that they should seek help if they need it.

Even where the recent spike hasn’t hit, officials are taking notice.

“We’re counting our blessings,” said Wayne Heath, a commander with the Anoka County sheriff’s office.

His agency is monitoring the situation with patrols and has assigned investigators and the county’s drug task force to be on the lookout.

“It truly is a roll of dice with some of drugs that are out there,” he said. “Not knowing what you’re getting can lead to tragic consequences, unfortunately.”

WHAT SHOULD THE PUBLIC DO

Police are asking people to:

• Call 911 if they or someone they know is overdosing.
• Use naloxone (Narcan) if a person is having an overdose.
• Tell drug users about the bad batch going around.
• Seek help through a chemical-dependency treatment center.

St. Paul police and tactical team members surrounded a house Thursday afternoon in the area of Fairview Avenue near Englewood Avenue for five hours and eventually resolved the situation with an arrest.

Police came to the Hamline-Midway home to arrest a male suspect, said St. Paul police spokesman Mike Ernster, but the man refused to come out. Ernster did not provide details about whether it was the suspect’s home or someone else’s or the reason for the man’s arrest.

The standoff began around noon and ended at 5 p.m., when the suspect was taken into custody, Ernster said.

A Metro Transit police officer who was injured during a bomb detection training exercise on Wednesday afternoon in St. Paul has been released from the hospital.

Officer Matthew Wilkinson is recovering from injuries that include burns to his hands and arms, according to Metro Transit spokesman Howie Padilla.

Wilkinson, a K-9 officer who has been with the agency for seven years, was preparing for a police dog bomb detection training exercise at a Metro Transit bus repair facility in the Midway area at the time of the incident.

He was handling a device with a small amount of explosives that ignited unexpectedly. His dog was still in the vehicle at the time.

The St. Paul police bomb squad responded to the incident and nearby buildings were evacuated as a precaution.

Metro Transit is investigating the incident, Padilla said.