ASSISTING PROBATION OFFICER Officer Troy Hokanson one day recently was accompanying a Dakota County Probation Officer checking on probationers in Lakeville. They stopped to check on one individual and found that the subject was extremely intoxicated, which was a violation of his probation conditions. Officer Hokanson assisted the Probation Officer and arrested the subject on an Arrest and Detain Order and the subject was jailed.  CAREER DAY During every school year, one of our Lakeville School Resource Officers will organize a career day for Lakeville High School students at the Police …

Most times when an officer makes a traffic stop, the violator will pull over to the side of the road and wait for the officer to approach their car, but officers stopping vehicles never assume that is what will happen.  Officer Shawn Fitzhenry and Officer Brad Wubben initiated a traffic stop on a vehicle for going through a stop sign without stopping. The vehicle pulled over to the side of the road and the driver jumped out of the car and fled down the roadway on foot. Officer Fitzhenry chased the suspect and called for assistance. Officer Jason Jensen and his K-9 partner, Zeus, responded to …

  Officer Mike Lamm responded to a crash one morning this week between two vehicles in a residential neighborhood, which didn’t involve any drivers. When Officer Lamm arrived at the location, he observed a large pickup that had rolled into the side of a parked sedan, causing significant damage to both vehicles. In speaking with the owner of the truck, Officer Lamm learned that the pickup truck owner had parked the truck on a hill and set the parking brake. After parking the truck, he was talking to a coworker when he observed his unoccupied truck rolling down the hill on the street, …

Officer Sandy Thoeny is known around the station for checking on the arrest warrant files for those individuals that have active outstanding arrest warrants that might be located in Lakeville. Then Officer Thoeny will follow up on the information during her shift and find and arrest them. So it was not unusual last Thursday when Officer Thoeny made a warrant arrest on a subject. Later in the day, Officer Thoeny tracked down a two more subjects with active arrest warrants out for them and made a second and third warrant arrests.  Officer Thoeny didn’t stop there though, when later during the …

One of the more common theft reports that our officers take on an ongoing basis are thefts of property from parked vehicles. Sometimes the vehicles are locked and a side window is broken or a lock compromised to gain entry, but more often than not, the parked vehicles are not locked and no forced entry is required by the thief to commit the theft.  We always encourage car owners to lock their vehicles every time they park them, even if they are parked on their own driveway. What often happens with these types of thefts is the suspects will walk through an area at night prowling parked …

This past year we celebrated the 25 year anniversary of our K-9 unit here at the Lakeville Police Department. Over the years, we have been fortunate to have six outstanding teams of great dogs with very dedicated and professional police K-9 handlers to serve our community. To date, every one of our police K-9s over the past 25 years have been specially bred German Shepherd dogs. The German Shepherds have always been selected because of their inherent qualities that make them very well rounded police general duty dogs.  That tradition of using German Shepherd breed dogs exclusively for our …

Officer Mike Katzovitz was on patrol one morning this past week when he pulled his squad into the parking lot of a convenience store and ran a routine registration check on a vehicle that was just pulling into a parking spot. Officer Katzovitz watched as the driver exited the vehicle and walked into the store. A few minutes later, Officer Katzovitz’s computer check on the vehicle revealed that it was stolen out of Minneapolis. Officer Rick Bussler arrived on the scene to assist Officer Katzovitz. When the driver of the stolen vehicle walked out of the convenience store and saw the two …

Officer Kevin O’Neill responded to a report of a motor vehicle crash near the Department of Transportation parking lot just south of the intersection of I-35 and 185th Street one day this week. Dispatch advised that a tow company had called to report the crash. They reported that they had been called to tow the car, but it had obviously been in a significant traffic crash and the driver did not want to report it to the police.  When Officer O’Neill arrived on the scene, he interviewed the driver of the car and found that the vehicle had been involved in a one-car crash when he drove off the …

Working on patrol on a dayshift doing traffic enforcement, you never know what you may come across on any one particular traffic stop. Most traffic stops involve a licensed driver who has violated some traffic law, such as speeding or running a stop sign. The officer will issue a citation or warning to the driver for the traffic violation and the driver will be on their way in a short amount of time. Occasionally, during the traffic stop with the traffic violator, the officer will become aware of a more serious criminal violation and there will be an arrest.  That is exactly what happened on …

Lakeville covers a very large geographic area and there is still quite a large area of land that is actively farmed in the central and eastern portions of the City. It is rare to have any calls related to agriculture for our officers, but occasionally we do respond to agriculture related calls. One night this week, Officer Josh Berkebile responded to a single vehicle crash on Flagstaff Ave. between an SUV and a cow. When Officer Berkebile arrived on the scene, he found that the vehicle had sustained significant damage when it struck a black steer that had wandered onto the roadway. …

Like us on Facebook | Follow us on Twitter | Sign up for our newsletter People often think that drunk driving is something that happens late at night after the bars close, but that is not always the case. Police officers know that people drink and drive at all times of the day and night and that drunk drivers often cause serious crashes with other vehicles in both the day and night, as happened one day last week in this case.  Officer Doyle Cockrell was working the dayshift when he responded to a “hit and run” crash on Dodd Boulevard near the intersection of Franchise Way. When Officer …

This past week, Officer Troy Hokanson was working on the dayshift and in the short span of about an hour responded to two consecutive traffic crashes. While it is not unusual for an officer to respond to multiple traffic crashes in a shift, it is unusual that they were both caused by the same thing – driver inattention. We know when the road and weather conditions are poor that there will be more crashes, but now we are seeing a growing trend of crashes caused exclusively by driver inattention or distraction.  One of the crashes occurred when a vehicle was stopped at a traffic signal and the …

Officer Jim Dronen was on patrol one night last week when he observed a vehicle broken down on the side of the road with the hood up and three individuals standing around the vehicle. He stopped to offer assistance and ran a registration check as he was pulling up to their location. The computer check revealed that the owner of the vehicle had a felony arrest warrant. Officer Dronen located and identified the owner of the vehicle and arrested him on the felony warrant. Officer Dronen transported the subject to the Dakota County Jail in Hastings on the arrest warrant, after making sure the …

Officers Jim Stevens and Jessica Swaner responded to a report of flames coming from behind a commercial building late one night this week. A person driving by the building noticed the flames and had called the dispatch center to report the fire. When the officers arrived on the scene, they found a semi-trailer parked behind the building that was fully engulfed in flames. The officers checked the surrounding area and did not find anyone around. Lakeville Fire Department units responded to the scene and extinguished the blaze. The cause of the fire remains under investigation.  NIGHT TO UNITE …

The irony of traffic safety is that some of the most severe crashes occur when the weather is good and the roadways are dry and clear. This past week Officers Anna Limbeck and Mike Lamm responded to a personal injury crash at the intersection of Lac Lavon Drive and Isleton Drive. When the officers arrived on the scene, they found that one vehicle was lying on its side and another vehicle near the intersection had moderate front end damage.  The officers found that both drivers of the damaged vehicles had sustained injuries. The driver of the rolled over vehicle had to be extricated by LFD …

Being in the right place at the right time is often thought to be a critical element of success. That saying was never truer than when Leah Mae Mickschl, who is a nurse at Children’s Hospital, was at her neighborhood pool on June 19th and provided lifesaving CPR and rescue breathing to four-year-old Cooper Whitfield in a near drowning incident. Cooper was transported to Children’s Hospital by Allina Paramedics after the incident and has since made a full recovery.  June 19th was a hot day and the Greenway neighborhood pool was full of kids when Cooper was pulled from the pool by his mother …

Panorama of Progress (Pan-O-Prog) week is one of the most challenging weeks of the year for our Police Department as thousands of visitors and residents come out to join in the annual summer festival by attending one or more of the events during the week around the 4th of July holiday. Because the 4th of July holiday fell on Wednesday this year, and we were in the midst of a heat wave with extreme heat weather warnings, attendance at many of the events was lighter than it has been in past years.  The two largest events, the Classic Car Cruise on Friday night and the Pan-O-Prog Grand Parade on…

In the early morning hours last Tuesday, a fast moving thunderstorm went through Lakeville, causing damage to residential neighborhoods in the northeast corner and southern side of the City. The damage included many trees knocked over by the wind and downed trees falling on houses and parked vehicles. Fortunately, there were no injuries reported from the storm.  On duty officers immediately began responding to incidents associated with the storm ranging from downed power lines and trees blocking roadways to numerous alarms and reports of power outages. Lakeville Fire Department firefighters …

In law enforcement there are many skills that officers are required to acquire and maintain throughout their careers, such as proficiency with firearms, emergency driving skills, and emergency first aid skills. Our officers train in these areas on an ongoing basis and are tested periodically to make sure that they are proficient and capable in these critical skill areas.  Just like their human partners, our LPD Police canines are also required to train in critical police skill areas such as obedience, tracking, and apprehension, on an ongoing basis and then have their skills tested in …

The nature of theft crimes changed forever when the Internet gave each of us access to literally all the information in the world, and at the same time created a vulnerability to be victimized in our own homes by someone sitting at a computer halfway around the world. More and more often, we are contacted by someone who has been victimized over the Internet and possibly had their personal financial information compromised.  This past week, Officer Troy Hokanson responded to a call from a resident that their home computer had possibly been compromised. When Officer Hokanson arrived at the …