LITTLE FALLS, Minn. (AP) — State investigators say a driver who fired at pursuing law enforcement officers in central Minnesota shot himself after crashing his vehicle.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension says Todd County sheriff’s deputies attempted to conduct a traffic stop Tuesday evening near Browerville. A pursuit with speeds exceeding 100 mph led into Morrison County.

The BCA says the driver shot at pursing deputies and troopers during the chase, but no one was injured. The driver left the road and struck a tree in Cushing.

Officials fired bean bag rounds and chemical munitions into the vehicle when the driver refused to get out.

Officers approached the vehicle and saw the driver had an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. The man was taken to the hospital. There’s no word on his condition.

A Maple Grove man was traveling over 80 mph in an SUV delivery truck and had just run a red light when he T-boned a Kia Sportage in White Bear Lake last spring, killing the vehicle’s 25-year-old driver, according to charges.

Robert James Norby, 53, was charged via warrant Wednesday with one count of criminal vehicular homicide for his role in the fatal collision on March 22, according to the criminal complaint filed in Ramsey County District Court.

Several other drivers on the road that afternoon witnessed the crash, which took place at 3:05 p.m. as Norby was speeding down Minnesota 96, according to the charges.

He blew through a red light at the intersection of the highway and the ramp to southbound Interstate 35 E, striking the Kia as its driver, a 25-year-old West St. Paul man, turned to get on the ramp, the complaint said.

One witness said Norby was traveling so fast at the time that his vehicle appeared to go “airborne” just before striking the Kia, which responding law enforcement found “crumpled” by the force of the impact, according to the charges.

The collision occurred during Norby’s first work shift driving solo for the delivery company DHL, the complaint said.

He was injured in the crash and taken by ambulance to St. John’s Hospital in Maplewood, where he underwent surgery on his right knee and wrist.

He told police and medical staff that he couldn’t remember much about the crash, only that he had been “going straight” and then “was spinning,” according to the charges.

He said he was heading east at the time to pick up a package at a nearby business, but reportedly could not remember the name of the business.

A blood test found no illegal drugs or alcohol in his system, and searches of his cellphone indicated he had not been using it at the time of the crash, the complaint said.

Investigators learned that his driver’s license was briefly canceled three times in 2017 and 2018 for “medical reasons,” according to the charges.

Medical staff who treated him at the hospital described him in reports as suffering from “type 2 diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia and stage II kidney disease.”

He told his doctors that he recently was diagnosed with “walking pneumonia” and that he had chronic problems with sleep apnea, according to the charges.

While he was “unclear” with authorities on whether he had seizures in the past, his medical history indicated he had, the complaint said.

Authorities found a lunch box in his truck that contained medications used to treat inflammation and seizures, as well as acetaminophen, the complaint said.

Investigators also uncovered a text message a friend sent to him the day after the crash indicating he was in past collisions.

“Oh no another accident they are going to pull your license now away,” it read, according to the complaint. “Something is wrong I hope they find out.”

No attorney was listed for Norby in court records and he could not be immediately reached for comment.

Delfonzo Denell Wallace walked into a Wendy’s restaurant on University Avenue in St. Paul last month, according to criminal charges, pulled out a gun and told the employees inside to get down on the floor.

Then he instructed the fast-food restaurant’s manager to lock the door.

That account is detailed in one of two criminal complaints filed against Wallace this week charging the 30-year-old West St. Paul man with first-degree aggravated robbery.

The Wendy’s robbery took place at 10 a.m. on Sept. 19.

After telling the manager he wanted “all the money,” she emptied the contents of two cash registers into Wallace’s bag, according to the charges.

Then he told the rest of the employees to put their cell phones in a plastic Target bag he passed around, explaining to the group he was robbing the place to “feed his kids,” the complaint said.

He left with the cell phones and money, but wound up dropping the bag of cell phones outside.

Four days later, Wallace walked into Shaung Hur Grocery on University Avenue right after the store opened for the day at 7:50 a.m., charges say.

He put a small black handgun to the manager’s back and ordered him to take him to the safe, the complaint said.

The manager handed over $3,000 from the safe, which Wallace reportedly shoved into a backpack before fleeing.

His photo was captured on the store’s surveillance video, and police distributed the image to the media in hopes the public would help identify the suspect.

Four separate people said Wallace was the suspect, charges say.

They executed a search warrant at his apartment and found 3 BB guns as well as clothing similar to the garments work in the robberies, according to the complaint.

Wallace is suspected in at least five other similar robberies that took place in St. Paul between Aug. 12 and Oct. 10, authorities say.

He is expected to make his next court appearance Oct. 31.

He has no prior criminal convictions on his record.

His 8-week-old son had a “(expletive) bad attitude,” and was always “acting like a baby.” He often put his hand near his face during feedings, or urinated during diaper changes, according to charges against his father.

Those were some of the reasons Jeremy Dean Berg told investigators he hurt his infant son, according to criminal charges filed  Thursday in Ramsey County District Court.

The 38-year-old St. Paul man was questioned after the child was hospitalized earlier this month for life-threatening injuries, including a skull fracture, a brain-bleed, broken ribs, bleeding and bruising of his genitalia, a swollen-shut left eye, a lacerated spleen and cuts on his forehead and behind his ear, the criminal complaint said.

Doctors told investigators the infant, who was born two weeks premature on Aug. 20, had a “50/50” percent chance of surviving, authorities say.

Berg initially denied causing the injuries, at first blaming them on the infant’s 2-year-old sibling, the complaint said. But he later admitted to the abuse.

He would hit his son in the genitals when he urinated on him during diaper changes, he told investigators, and would squeeze his hand or deny him food when the infant covered his mouth during feeds, charges say. When the baby would cry for too long, he said he covered his mouth and nose.

He also admitted to driving around in his truck with the child on his lap, and said the infant had recently fallen out when he was exiting the vehicle, dropping four or five feet and hitting his head on the pavement, the complaint said.

Berg thought this son was dead, and picked him up and shook him “violently,” charges say. Then he took him inside a gas station restroom and pressed down repeatedly on the child’s chest, the complaint said.

Berg never called 911 or asked anyone for help at the time.

He apologized during the interview with authorities, and wrote a letter to the child’s mother, with whom he has two other children.

The couple does not live in the same house.

“I never meant to hurt (the child) … I hope he is ok and doesn’t get any bad effects from this,” Berg wrote, according to the charges.

Berg was scheduled to make his next court appearance in the case later Thursday.

He is charged with two counts of malicious punishment of a child resulting in great bodily harm.

His attorney, public defender Michael Carsten, could not be reached for comment.

A 33-year-old man died Thursday in St. Paul after a driver struck the car he was a passenger in, according to the Minnesota State Patrol.

The five other people in the four-vehicle crash sustained injuries, which the State Patrol described as non-life threatening. The collisions happened on northbound U.S. 52 near Plato Boulevard about 12:25 p.m.

The driver of a Chevrolet Malibu, 20-year-old Megan C. Severson, of Preston, Minn., was in the left lane and attempted to merge into the right lane, according to the State Patrol. She struck a Saturn SL driven by David McLin, 28, of Apple Valley.

Anthony K. Kawino and Hailey M. Flynn, 20, of Minneapolis, were passengers in the Saturn. Kawino, of Burnsville, died.

The Saturn then rear-ended a Honda Civic, driven by 41-year-old Joseph P. Yanish, of West St. Paul. The Civic hit a Ford Escape that Gary J. Lesney, 64, of Inver Grove Heights, was driving.

McLin and Flynn were transported to Regions Hospital. The people in the other vehicles were not taken to the hospital.

The three people in the Saturn were not wearing seat belts, according to the State Patrol. Two of the other drivers were seat-belted and it was unknown about another driver.

The State Patrol is investigating the crash, but said alcohol was not a factor.

Northbound U.S. 52 was closed in the area and reopened midafternoon.

A Minnesota Department of Corrections sergeant is accused of exchanging McDonald’s food for oral sex while driving a female inmate to jail last month.

Randy Allen Beehler, 53, of Foley, Minn., was charged Thursday with third-degree criminal sexual conduct and fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct for the alleged incident that happened along U.S. 52. He was taking the woman from Olmsted County jail to Hennepin County jail.

The Dakota County attorney’s office is handling the case because the crime happened in the county, prosecutors say.

“It is a felony under Minnesota law for a correctional officer to engage in sexual acts with a person who is a resident of a jail, prison, detention center or work release facility or under supervision of the correctional system,” said Kathy Keena, chief deputy attorney for Dakota County. “Consent by the individual is not a defense. Criminal activity of this nature is a significant breach of trust.”

According to a statement by the Department of Corrections Thursday, Beehler remains on the agency’s payroll and an active complaint against him is under investigation.

According to the charges, on Sept. 30 detectives with the Hennepin County sheriff’s office were contacted to investigate the allegations. The woman reported to Hennepin County jail staff that she had been sexually assaulted by the person who transported her from Olmsted County earlier in the day.

During the transfer, Beehler told the woman he was going to stop for food. She indicated that she would “do anything” for some food and Beehler asked if that included coming up to the front seat and “fooling around,” charges allege.

“Beehler asked the Victim if she would tell anyone if they did that and the Victim said no,” charges read. “Beehler told the Victim she could get in a lot of trouble if she told anyone.”

Beehler stopped the vehicle at a McDonald’s drive-thru in Cannon Falls around 12:45 p.m. and ordered meals for them both.

After leaving the restaurant, Beehler parked the vehicle by an abandoned business, un-cuffed the victim and brought her up to the front seat, charges allege. Beehler started back on the road.

While traveling through Dakota County, Beehler opened his pants exposing his penis and the woman manually stimulated him and performed oral sex on him, charges allege.

When questioned by an investigator, Beehler initially denied any inappropriate contact, but eventually admitted that he had gotten the woman food at McDonald’s in Cannon Falls and permitted her to sit in the front seat of the vehicle while there. He also admitted the woman performed the sex acts, prosecutors say.

Beehler made his first appearance in court Thursday and was released from jail after posting $50,000 bond. His next court appearance is scheduled for Dec. 11.

On Thursday, Department of Corrections Commissioner Paul Schnell called the allegations “disturbing,” adding that they do not “reflect the professionalism of the more than 4,000 agency personnel who serve with integrity and honor. Our immediate concern is for the victim of this crime.”

FORT MYERS, Fla. — A former Florida police officer who accidentally shot and killed a former Twin Cities woman during a citizens academy exercise will serve no prison time.

Lee Coel, 31, pleaded no contest Wednesday to second-degree manslaughter as part of a deal with prosecutors.

A Lee County judge withheld adjudication of guilt and sentenced Coel to 10 years of probation.

He must also make restitution and has agreed not to seek employment as a police officer.

Coel was working for the Punta Gorda Police Department in August 2016 when authorities say he mistakenly shot and killed 73-year-old Mary Knowlton during a role-playing scenario. Knowlton was shot with a gun that was supposed to have blanks.

Coel was fired in March 2017, shortly after being criminally charged.

Knowlton’s husband and son attended Wednesday’s hearing to voice their opposition to the plea agreement.

Knowlton was the librarian at Parkview Elementary School in Rosemount from 1988 to 2004, then worked in a substitute capacity at other schools in the district through 2013, according to the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan school district.

She also worked at the Scott County Public Library in the 1980s and was an active community member in Prior Lake, where she lived, serving on the library board from 1993 to 2001.

Knowlton and her husband, Gary, most recently lived in Prior Lake before moving to Florida upon retirement, where she continued her librarian work and served on the Friends of the Punta Gorda Library board of directors.

CLOQUET, Minn. — A 28-year-old Minneapolis man is in custody and a 45-year-old Minneapolis man is hospitalized after a shooting at a funeral on the Fond du Lac Indian Reservation on Friday morning.

The shooting, which forced a nearby school and tribal offices into lockdown, happened at about 9:46 a.m. in the gymnasium of the Fond du Lac Head Start building in Cloquet, where a funeral was being held, said Derek Randall, interim chief of the Cloquet Police Department in northeastern Minnesota.

The suspect, Shelby Boswell, shot a rifle once at the victim, striking him in the head, Randall said.

Boswell attempted to flee the scene, but funeral attendees managed to restrain him outside the gym until law enforcement arrived.

Randall said Boswell and the victim likely know each other, but Boswell’s motive is not yet known.

The victim was transported first to Cloquet Memorial Hospital, and then to a Duluth hospital. His condition is unknown, but Randall said he believed the victim would survive.

Randall would not release the victim’s name Friday, but said the victim was attending the visitation and funeral, and that it was unclear why Boswell was there.

“We do not know if Mr. Boswell was attending the funeral or if he was there to confront the victim,” Randall said.

The funeral of tribal member Hazel Barbara Olson was being held at the gym Friday morning, according to her obituary.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is investigating the shooting.

The shooting caused lockdowns at the nearby Fond du Lac Ojibwe School, tribal offices and clinic for several hours.

Boswell has a history of convictions for violent crime, including a fifth-degree assault and a second-degree assault involving a baseball bat on the Fond du Lac Reservation in 2010, as well as a 2015 third-degree assault in Bemidji resulting in substantial bodily harm.

Tribal spokeswoman Rita Aspinwall said Boswell is not among the band’s 4,200 enrolled members.

“(Shootings) happen everywhere, but it especially hurts when it happens in your own community,” Aspinwall said during a news conference, according to the Associated Press.

A crash in St. Paul that killed an 18-year-old woman and critically injured others happened when a wrong-way driver struck another car head-on, police said Friday.

Paramedics pronounced Sulekha M. Abdi, of St. Peter, Minn., dead at the scene on Thursday night, in what Sgt. Mike Ernster called “a tragic crash.”

Police said the 29-year-old driver and a passenger were critically injured at Lower Afton Road and Morningside Circle by Battle Creek Regional Park about 6:25 p.m.

Police obtained a search warrant to draw the driver’s blood for testing to determine if alcohol or drugs were in his system, Ernster said. The results are pending.

The police department initially said Thursday night there were six people in the car, in which Abdi was a passenger; they clarified Friday there were seven people.

Abdiwali Abdullahi Farah, 29, was driving a white Pontiac G6 west on Lower Afton Road in the eastbound lane when he collided head-on with a red Pontiac G6 that was traveling east in the same lane, according to Ernster.

A witness told police the white car drove down Morningside Circle before turning onto Lower Afton, though police are still trying to confirm Farah’s path before the crash.

The driver of the red car, Madrayle J. Williams, reported the white car swerved in front of him, according to Ernster.

Abdi was ejected from Farah’s car; it appeared she was not wearing a seat belt, according to Ernster.

Paramedics transported Farah and passengers from the white car — Ahmed Omar, 25; Mohammad Maye, 30; Mohad Ali Osman, 25; Zahro Abdiraman Noor, 19; and Dunia Abdi Warsame, 19 — to Regions Hospital.

Farah and Osman were listed in critical condition Friday; police said they are stable. Noor was in serious condition and Warsame was in fair condition, according to the hospital. Information about Omar’s condition was not available.

Maye was treated at Regions and released, as was Williams, 35. Kesha Ayoub, 46, the passenger in the red car, was also taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Police said good Samaritans went to help before first responders arrived.

“We were lucky enough to have a lot of people stop, including a medical doctor, who stopped to try to render aid at the scene,” Ernster said.

Police say a pregnant woman was killed and three others were injured when a speeding SUV driving the wrong way hit a minivan and several other vehicles in North Minneapolis late Thursday night.

On Friday, the driver of the SUV — who authorities say was high on drugs — was charged with four counts relating to the crash.

Authorities say police and fire department personnel worked for nearly an hour after the 11 p.m. crash to extricate the woman, who was eight months pregnant, from the minivan. Police say she and her unborn child died before she could be removed.

Investigators said an SUV was going the wrong way on a one-way street when it hit a parked vehicle and sped away, striking the minivan and several other vehicles in the 1300 block of Newton Avenue North.

The driver of the minivan and the two occupants from the SUV were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.

On Friday, the Hennepin County attorney’s office charged the SUV’s driver, Mark Franklin Jr., 36, of Minneapolis, with criminal vehicular homicide and three other counts pertaining to the death of the unborn child and the injury of the other motorists.

The charges say that Franklin admitted using PCP, an illicit hallucinogenic drug, before the crash. Bail was set at $1 million. His first court appearance was scheduled for Monday.

A shootout left two males wounded Sunday night about a block from Allianz Field in St. Paul, just as Minnesota United was beginning a playoff game against LA Galaxy.

The shooting occurred at 7:35 p.m. in a parking lot behind a laundromat at Pascal Street and University Avenue, according to Steve Linders, a St. Paul police spokesman.

We are investigating a double shooting that occurred tonight at 7:35 pm in a parking lot at Pascal Street and University Avenue.

Two victims being treated for non-life threatening GSWs, one gun recovered, no arrests.

Not believed to be random.

— Saint Paul Police Department (@sppdmn) October 21, 2019

Linders said his heart sank when he heard about the shooting.

“Anytime that I hear someone’s been shot, it’s a sad situation,” he said. “… When you have 20,000 people enjoying a soccer game, it just elevates it and makes it that (much) more acute.”

At the time of the shooting, about 20,000 people were settling in to watch the Major League Soccer Round 1 playoff game. The parking lot where the shooting took place is about 1,000 feet northeast of Allianz Field.

Many police officers were working in the area and responded to the shooting in a minute or two, Linders said.

Witnesses reported there was a group of people behind The Laundry Place and another group passed by.

“At some point, shots were fired, so we know that at least two people were exchanging gunfire and, unfortunately, two people were struck,” Linders said. Police said it did not appear random.

One male sustained “a grazing gunshot wound to the head” and also was shot in the arm, and the other was shot multiple times in the torso, said Linders, who didn’t have information Sunday night about whether they are adults or juveniles.

Paramedics transported the males to Regions Hospital to be treated for non-life threatening injuries.

Police took a suspected shooter into custody and recovered a handgun at the scene. Officers were still looking for the other shooter Sunday night and asked anyone with information to call police at 651-266-5650.

Sunday night’s shooting comes on the heels of an especially violent September in St. Paul.

St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter addressed the media at the scene of Sunday night’s shooting.

“It’s time for us to do something fundamentally different in St. Paul and in our country,” Carter said. “We’ve seen too much of this. … Stopping these cycles requires much more than just police resources.”

Frederick Melo contributed to this report.

Minnesota prisons are coping with a chronic staff shortage by frequently asking — and often forcing — workers to pull double shifts. While prison officials say it’s necessary to cover vital posts, some officers say it contributes to burnout among the department’s ranks.

The Minnesota Department of Corrections shelled out nearly $12.3 million for more than 262,000 hours of overtime in fiscal year 2019, according to DOC data. That’s a notable rise from the $6.9 million it spent for roughly 150,000 hours the year before.

About 80 percent of the overtime hours and pay last fiscal year went to the nearly 2,000 corrections officers who guard the state’s 10 prisons. The DOC had 113 officer vacancies as of Sept. 17.

State Corrections Commissioner Paul Schnell said the agency ramped up its use of overtime after two officers died in the line of duty last year. Corrections officer Joseph Gomm was allegedly bludgeoned to death by an inmate at the Stillwater prison in July 2018. Two months later, officer Joe Parise died of a medical emergency after responding to an attack on a colleague at the Oak Park Heights facility.

Their deaths shed light on the dangers of understaffed facilities following the department’s bloodiest year ever, in which inmates assaulted officers at record rates.

“We incurred a significant amount of overtime as a result of that,” Schnell said. “Everything that happens (in prison) requires security personnel, and that has been the place where we’ve had the biggest challenges.”

But some corrections officers say the surge in overtime has worn down staff and could even scare away potential hires. When prison administrators can’t find volunteers to fill open posts, they force officers with the least seniority to put in extra hours. That can happen to an officer once every five days, as permitted by the contract with the guards’ union.

“It kind of breaks your mental health down,” said Megan Weinzierl, a corrections officer at the prison in Oak Park Heights. “Granted our paychecks are great, but some people have … lives outside of this and they cannot commit to working 16 hours on Thursdays.”

‘GETTING BURNT OUT’

Weinzierl said she was forced to work one double shift every week for nearly nine months straight when she first joined the DOC. Three and a half years later, she is still getting forced into overtime shifts.

The 25-year-old has missed plenty of special occasions because of it.

“If you had any plans after work … you’d have to call your loved ones and be like, ‘Hey, sorry I’m not going to be able to make it,’ ” Weinzierl said. “We’re so short-staffed right now that even our senior staff … that want the overtime are getting burnt out.”

The Oak Park Heights facility spent $1.7 million on overtime last fiscal year, up 88 percent from the year before.

Watch commanders at the prison radio for volunteers “pretty much on a daily basis,” said corrections officer Glenn Lisowy. The night shifts often have several posts that need to be filled.

Lisowy, a 30-year veteran of the department, has seen his fellow officers cry and in some cases quit because they were forced to work too much overtime. It wears on officers who cannot afford to let their guard down.

“I look at new staff now and I see something that I haven’t seen in a lot of years,” Lisowy said. “I’m seeing some fear in their eyes. Not only just fear of what we’ve been going through (with the officer deaths), but fear in how do I call my spouse again and tell them I got to get forced? How do I call my kid up and say I’m not going to make their baseball game?”

A LAST RESORT

Prison administrators maintain they only force overtime to fill critical positions. And they exhaust long- and short-term volunteer lists before they get to that point.

“We take it very seriously and do not enter into it lightly at all,” said Victor Wanchena, associate warden at the Stillwater prison. “This is a disruption in their life and it has real impacts on people’s lives.”

The Stillwater prison, which is 45 officers short of being fully staffed, spent $3 million on overtime last fiscal year — more than any other DOC facility. That is up 103 percent from the year before.

Most of the overtime is taken by volunteers, Stillwater Warden Guy Bosch said, and not every shift is a double.

Bosch estimates that nine out of every 10 overtime shifts at his facility are voluntary. In the summer, when senior staff tend to go on vacation, the use of forced overtime ticks up.

The DOC does not track how much overtime is voluntary and how much is forced. But agency-wide, Schnell estimates that at least half of the overtime hours, if not more, come from forced shifts.

“This is happening a lot,” Schnell said. “We are concerned that our overtime is maintaining a pace with last year.”

MN PRISONS USE OT LESS THAN OTHERS

Even if the DOC is on track to spend another $12 million, or more, on overtime this fiscal year, Minnesota still spends much less than other states.

That’s because the size of Minnesota’s DOC and prison population are relatively small — the agency has some 4,300 employees who oversee about 9,600 offenders.

Neighboring Wisconsin employs about 10,000 DOC workers who oversee more than 23,000 inmates. Wisconsin paid its prison staff $50.6 million in overtime in 2018, accounting for 21 different facilities. Wisconsin is facing a major prison staffing shortage with as many as 20 percent of jobs unfilled at a given time.

The Arizona DOC, which has about 10,000 employees and a prison population of more than 42,000, spent more than $40 million on overtime from 2017 to 2018. It, too, has struggled with a staffing shortage.

STAFFING SHORTAGE PERSISTS

The Minnesota DOC has made some progress on its staffing shortage, with 55 trainees expected to fill corrections officer posts.

Those trainees could put the DOC within 58 vacancies of being fully staffed if no other officers leave the department.

But officer retention has been “really problematic,” Schnell said, to the point that prisons do not feel much of a boost from new hires.

A total of 240 corrections officers left the DOC in fiscal year 2019, giving the agency a turnover rate of 12.4 percent.

Some officers left after Gomm and Parise died. Others have quit because of the forced overtime.

Making matters worse: a tight labor market and wages that aren’t competitive with county jails. The starting wage for DOC corrections officers is $17.90 an hour, or about $37,375 per year. Ramsey County, for example, pays its corrections officers a starting wage of $23.85 an hour, or about $49,610 per year.

Weinzierl, who sits on the DOC’s recruitment and retention committee, thinks the department could hold onto more staff with better management of its overtime. Officers deserve more notice before they are forced into a second shift, she said, and partial shifts would be more palatable.

The Minnesota Legislature included funding for 78 new corrections officers in the state budget it passed in May. The DOC had sought funding to hire 120 new officers, citing urgent security needs in its facilities.

“I think the large amount of overtime just reiterates the need that we have to increase the staffing numbers,” Considine said, adding that lawmakers will need to re-evaluate the staffing situation when they return to the Capitol next year.

St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter is envisioning bringing a supplemental budget proposal to the City Council to “focus on public safety from a comprehensive level.”

Carter made the announcement Monday, a day after a teen and a man were wounded in a shooting near Allianz Field in St. Paul where thousands of people were attending a Minnesota United playoff game at the time. They were among six people injured in separate shootings since Friday afternoon in St. Paul.

“If you compare St. Paul with … comparable cities around the country … we are a safe city, but we’ll never be safe enough,” Carter said at a Monday news conference at City Hall. “One shot fired is too many. One life lost in St. Paul is too many.”

What do the numbers say about gun violence?

• 132 people have been wounded or killed by gunfire in St. Paul so far this year; as of mid-October last year, there had been 112.
• There have been 24 homicides in St. Paul this year, 22 of which have involved guns. Eight of St. Paul’s homicides happened in September.
• St. Paul has seen an average of about 16 homicides a year since 1999, according to FBI data. The most during that span was 24 in 2005, the least was eight in 2011.

Carter said there are people who think St. Paul is on pace for a record-high year, but he said that happened when he was in junior high school in the city in the early 1990s. St. Paul documented the most homicides in 1992 with 34, according to the police department.

“Preventing our streets from getting back to that place is going to require the type of comprehensive plan that we’re in the process of building right now,” Carter said Monday.

SPECIFICS UP IN THE AIR

The mayor said neighbors, business leaders and police officers tell him their public safety concerns are centered in three areas: Homelessness, young people “who are disengaged and … who have nothing to do in the summertime or after school,” and the impacts of drug abuse and mental health in the community.

For a supplemental budget, Carter said he’s “open to anything that can address those things” directly. He said he doesn’t have an exact cost in mind because a Nov. 5 referendum on organized trash collection “will have a large impact on the budget situation.”

It’s unclear exactly what happens if “No” votes prevail on the trash question, but the mayor has said $27 million in costs would be shifted over to property taxes, increasing the tax levy accordingly.

City Council President Amy Brendmoen said Monday that she’s been in communication with Carter “for the better part of the year about more global solutions to the underlying causes of gun violence.” The council could look at some of those ideas for the 2020 budget, if the trash referendum passes and there is flexibility with the tax levy, Brendmoen said.

POLICE: SHOOT-OUT SUNDAY NIGHT NOT RANDOM

The Sunday night shooting happened in a parking lot behind a laundromat at Pascal Street and University Avenue, about a block from the soccer stadium as 20,000 people were settling in for the game. Police said it was a shoot-out and did not appear random.

Paramedics took two people to Regions Hospital in St. Paul and they are expected to survive, said Steve Linders, a St. Paul police spokesman. A 16-year-old was shot in the abdomen and back, and a 24-year-old was grazed in the head by a bullet and shot in the arm, according to Linders.

Police said a male is in custody in connection to the shooting and a handgun was recovered at the scene.

FOUR INJURED IN THREE OTHER SHOOTINGS

Linders said he didn’t have information about whether any of the weekend shootings are connected to each other. Each of the people were treated for non-life threatening injuries, according to police.

• On Friday at 4:40 p.m., officers responded to a report of an assault and were told a 17-year-old male was walking from a store on Edgerton Street near Maryland Avenue when a car pulled up and someone shot him in the lower back.
• Later Friday, at 11:50 p.m., a 29-year-old man was shot outside Johnny Baby’s bar at University Avenue and Chatsworth Street, Linders said. He was wounded in the abdomen. About 30 minutes later, a 29-year-old woman who had been grazed by a bullet in the stomach in the incident walked into Regions.
• Then, on Saturday at 5 p.m., a 20-year-old man arrived at Regions Hospital after being shot. He said he and his girlfriend were walking in the area of Hague Avenue and Syndicate Street when he felt a sharp pain in his abdomen, Linders said. His father took him to the hospital.

Police said no one has been arrested in the shootings from Friday and Saturday.

The weekend before, there were reports of shots fired in St. Paul, but no reports of injuries.

In the first weekend of October, 23-year-old man Jeriko Boykin Sr. was fatally shot and his 4-year-old son was wounded on St. Paul’s West Side.

BUDGET TO BE APPROVED IN DECEMBER

The 2020 budget process has been underway in St. Paul for months. Carter proposed his budget in August, and the City Council has been discussing it since then. The council is due to approve a budget in December.

Carter said Monday city leaders will be announcing in the coming weeks a series of public engagement events to hear from community members about “how we build the types of solutions that are necessary.”

While Carter said there is a “clear plan” to work on the areas that people have raised as concerns, he also shares with community members “a clear sense that we can and must do more.”

As it stands, Carter said his budget proposal would bring the number of police officers to the highest in the city’s history. Though his proposal reduces the department’s authorized strength from 635 to 630 officers, the department has not been staffed to the maximum. At its highest, the department stood at 628 officers last December.

The mayor’s budget also funds a library social worker, and a “Familiar Faces” pilot program that focuses on the needs of mentally ill residents who frequently come into contact with law enforcement.

Frederick Melo contributed to this report.

CLOQUET, Minn. — A Twin Cities man has been charged with shooting his sister’s boyfriend in the head at funeral services for the suspect’s grandmother on the Fond du Lac Indian Reservation in northeastern Minnesota.

On Friday morning, Shelby Gene Boswell, 28, of Hugo, entered the gymnasium of the Fond du Lac Head Start building in Cloquet, where the funeral was being held. Boswell walked behind his sister and her boyfriend, Broderick Boshay Robinson, 45, of Minneapolis. Boswell then used a rifle to shoot Robinson in the back of the head, according to the criminal complaint filed Monday in Carlton County District Court.

Robinson was released from a Duluth hospital Friday night.

Boswell is charged with first-degree assault — great bodily harm; second-degree assault — dangerous weapon; third-degree possession of drugs; fifth-degree possession of drugs; possession of a firearm despite being convicted of a crime of violence; and introduction of drugs into a jail. Boswell’s bail is set at $500,000, and he remained in the Carlton County jail.

Police found heroin and methamphetamine on Boswell at the time of arrest. During a search at the Carlton County jail, staff also found a bag of marijuana, the complaint said.

Boswell has a history of convictions for violent crime, including fifth-degree assault and second-degree assault involving a baseball bat on the Fond du Lac Reservation in 2010, as well as a 2015 third-degree assault in Bemidji resulting in substantial bodily harm.

The shooting sent the nearby Fond du Lac Ojibwe School and tribal offices into full lockdown.

A 36-year-old man who apparently shot himself after leading law enforcement officers on a high-speed chase through two Minnesota counties has died, state investigators say.

Joshua Adam Ostrowski, whose last known address was in Browerville, Minn., died of a single gunshot wound to the head, according to the Hennepin County medical examiner’s office.

Todd County sheriff’s deputies last Tuesday evening attempted to pull over Ostrowski’s vehicle near Browerville, but Ostrowski fled at speeds exceeding 100 mph, firing at pursuing deputies and state troopers, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said in a news release.

Ostrowski left the road and struck a tree in Cushing, where officers fired bean bag rounds and chemical munitions into his vehicle when he did not comply with orders to exit.

When officers finally approached the vehicle, they found Ostrowski with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head, the BCA said.

No officers were injured during he chase. The BCA is investigating the incident.

A woman was pistol-whipped and robbed in St. Paul on Monday afternoon while her 2-year-old son was nearby, according to police.

Officers were called to the Frogtown area at 2:20 p.m., after the 42-year-old pulled into a parking lot near a church to make a cellphone call.

She realized a group of six to eight males, who appeared to be juveniles, had surrounded her vehicle in the lot at Mackubin Street and Charles Avenue, said Sgt. Mike Ernster, a St. Paul police spokesman.

A male, who was holding a handgun, opened the driver’s door and the woman told an officer she was surprised and scared. She said she fought with the suspect outside of her driver’s door to prevent the males from taking her vehicle or hurting her son, who was in the back seat, according to Ernster.

The male pointed the gun in her face and said several things to her, but she didn’t know what he was saying because she doesn’t understand English, Ernster said. He then struck her in the side of the face with the gun, leaving her with a large bruise.

The woman reported the males ran and bicycled away, and she saw her purse was missing from the front seat of her vehicle.

Someone found the woman’s purse a couple of blocks away at Edmund Avenue and Kent Street. Her wallet was gone.

No one has been arrested. The woman wasn’t able to provide detailed descriptions of the males because she said it happened too fast, according to Ernster.

St. Paul’s mayor has received a threatening voice mail and racist messages over an upcoming vote on organized trash collection, according to recent police reports.

Police are investigating who is behind the hate letters to Melvin Carter, St. Paul’s first African-American mayor.

“While the two police reports over the past week relate to the garbage lawsuit, it is not uncommon for the Mayor’s Office to receive calls or letters that are reported to law enforcement,” Peter Leggett, Carter’s communications director, said in a statement Tuesday. “While we don’t publicize our office’s security measures, we take all threats seriously, and are diligent in our steps to ensure the safety of the Mayor and our staff.”

The issue of trash collection and an upcoming referendum, which drew a ruling by the Minnesota Supreme Court last week, have drawn strong reactions in the community.

People are concerned about the cost of trash collection, not being able to share carts and the lack of choice in haulers. Proponents say the old system was inefficient, produced wear and tear on roads and alleys and created widely disparate rates.

BULLETPROOF WINDOWS

With people voicing their opinions on social media and other forums, anger has also been directed at Carter. As has been the case for other St. Paul mayors, Carter has a police officer assigned to him for security.

The officer wrote in a Monday police report that a threatening voice mail was left at Carter’s office regarding the city tax levy.

The caller made racist remarks directed to Carter and said that if taxes increase, the mayor will have to pay for it and will have to put bulletproof windows on his house, according to a police report summarized by Sgt. Mike Ernster, a St. Paul police spokesman.

Police are investigating who left the message.

On Nov. 5, St. Paul voters will decide whether to vote “yes” or “no” on Ordinance 18-39, a key piece of the city’s new system of organized trash collection, which began last October. It’s unclear exactly what happens if “no” votes prevail, but Carter has said $27 million in costs would be shifted over to property taxes, increasing the tax levy accordingly.

‘HATE LETTERS’ DESCRIBED

Another police report described “hate letters” that were received at the mayor’s office in City Hall on Oct. 7 and 11.

Both contained newspaper clippings about the trash levy and had handwritten notes on the articles. One said, “This is what we get for voting a (racial epithet) boy,” and another included various expletives and a racial slur and said, “No vote ever again for this jerk,” according to Ernster.

In June, an envelope addressed to Carter included a Pioneer Press article about the city’s trash collection and a message was written in black marker, saying, “This is B.S. you (expletive) (racial slur),” a police report said.

It was unknown how many people touched the envelope, but police sent the letter for fingerprint testing. Police have not been notified of a match, though the case will be reopened if a person is identified, Ernster said.

Peter Butler, one of several plaintiffs who filed lawsuits against the city over organized trash collection, said Tuesday that he knows the debate has been heated, but he hasn’t heard about it “crossing that line of threatening each other or making statements like that.”

“It’s very troubling to hear,” Butler said. “I guess some people have lost perspective on this issue, unfortunately. Maybe there are people who are upset about a lot of things and they see this as an opportunity” to lash out at government officials.

A MOTHER’S REACTION

When Toni Carter, Melvin’s mother, was elected commissioner to the Ramsey County Board in 2005, she became the first African-American person to serve on a county board in Minnesota.

She said she’s received two or three communications over the years that included “comments that might be termed as racial slurs.”

“I haven’t felt threatened by them,” she said Tuesday. “I felt certain things motivate people, fear being one of them. I’m thankful that none of that has translated into danger to myself or my family.”

Carter said she believes any messages of hate are not representative of the community as a whole.

As a mother, Toni Carter said she’s always worried about her son’s safety and well-being. She said she copes with her concern by “abiding in my faith and my belief that he’s doing the work that he needs to do, that he’s been called to do, and he’ll be guided and protected by that, and we have a community that respects and supports his work.”

Frederick Melo contributed to this report.

AUSTIN, Minn. — Police say an 18-year-old Austin High School student was found dead on a sidewalk last weekend, but investigators in the southern Minnesota city have yet to establish the cause of her death and might not know for weeks pending toxicology results.

A 20-year-old man was in custody, but his connection to the young woman’s death remains unclear.

On Tuesday, Austin police identified the 18-year-old as Erica Manzano. Police Chief David McKichan said that there was nothing to indicate that physical violence or assault was a factor in Manzano’s death.

Out of respect to the young woman and her family, he didn’t want to speculate about what caused her death without more investigative information.

“I can say trauma, a physical event, is not something that the medical examination has indicated to us what occurred,” McKichan said.

Police said Manzano’s father found her body Saturday morning on a sidewalk next to a house in Austin. Police found a 20-year-old Austin man on the roof of the house.

The man fled, but police later arrested him and took him into custody. He remains in the Mower County jail on a probation violation.

McKichan said the man knew Manzano, but that at this point they are not looking at charges against him.

A 31-year-old Eagan woman was on meth when she drove the wrong way down a Rosemount road and plowed into a car, injuring three people last year, prosecutors say.

Sarah Renata Olivia Cooper was charged this month in Dakota County District Court with three felony counts of criminal vehicular operation resulting in substantial bodily harm (negligence and schedule one or two controlled substance present) in connection with the Dec. 15 wreck that happened on Highway 3, north of Connemara Trail and south Bonaire Path.

An investigation concluded that Cooper had been driving north in the southbound lane of Highway 3 and at a high rate of speed, a criminal complaint alleges. The driver of the other car saw her approaching and moved to the right, but was unable to avoid the head-on collision.

Cooper’s entire car was in the southbound lane at the time of impact, charge state.

All three people in the other car were injured. The driver suffered a fractured toe. The back seat passenger required emergency surgery after suffering a fractured rib, collarbone and leg, and a lacerated spleen.

The front-seat passenger suffered blunt abdominal trauma that led to hemorrhage and emergency intervention.

According to charges, Cooper told an officer she could not remember what had happened and that she thinks she fell asleep.

Results of a blood sample taken from Cooper and analyzed by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension showed the presence of methamphetamine, amphetamine and a metabolite of THC, charges state.

Cooper, who was charged by summons, is scheduled to make an initial court appearance Dec. 23. Each count carries up to three years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

RAPID CITY, S.D. — A Colorado man who said he was delivering hemp to Minnesota when he was arrested in South Dakota has been indicted by a grand jury after his load tested positive for THC, the component in marijuana that produces a high.

A grand jury in Jackson County, S.D., last month indicted Robert Herzberg, 41, of Red Feather Lakes, Colo., on charges of intending to distribute marijuana and possessing more than 10 pounds of the drug. He also faces charges of ingesting marijuana and cocaine, according to court records. Herzberg is free on $5,000 bond and due in court Nov. 6.

Herzberg told a state trooper he was delivering 300 pounds of hemp from Colorado to Minneapolis on July 16 when he was pulled over for speeding on Interstate 90. He was arrested after the trooper found “two large white sacks that contained a green leafy substance that looked and smelled like raw marijuana” and field tested positive for the drug.

The Minnesota Hemp Association and the Colorado man who hired Herzberg to deliver the product told the Rapid City Journal that Herzberg was delivering hemp — not marijuana — to a CBD-oil processing company in Minnesota.

Prosecutors filed results from the South Dakota state lab that show Herzberg tested positive for THC and cocaine, as well as results from six plant samples that contained more THC than is allowed under federal law.

No amount of THC is legal under South Dakota law. But according to a May memorandum from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, states cannot block the transportation of hemp that contains 0.3 percent or less THC.

Defense attorney Matthew Kinney said he plans to speak with experts who can explain the reliability of THC testing and whether the amount of THC in a plant can increase over time.

Even if any of his load was above the federal limit, “you can’t get high from this stuff” unless you smoke the entire bag, Kinney said.

Prosecutors also would have to prove that Herzberg knew the plant was marijuana, Kinney said.

“My client thought everything was legal,” Kinney said.