No Assignment is Routine for Lakeville Police Officers

Editor's Note: The following features are from Lakeville Police Chief Thomas Vonhof's weekly newsletter, "Breezes." 

Working as a police officer, regardless of how routine the assignment you are working, you never know what is going to happen next. That was certainly true [on a recent] Sunday morning when Officer Nic Stevens was working an off-duty traffic control assignment at a local church at about 10:45 a.m., when a citizen approached him and reported an erratic driver. As Officer Stevens was gathering the information on the erratic driver, another citizen came up to report the same vehicle driving erratically in the area.

While the two citizens were making the report to Officer Stevens, the vehicle in question came up to the intersection and Officer Stevens motioned for the driver to pull over. The driver looked directly at Officer Stevens and drove away. Officer Stevens got into his marked patrol car and activated his emergency lights in an attempt to stop the vehicle.

The driver continued on the roadway without slowing or stopping, but several times the driver turned and clearly could see Officer Steven’s squad attempting to stop her car. The subject vehicle eventually entered onto I-35 and continued southbound to the intersection of I-35 and County Road 70. During the entire time, Officer Stevens continued to attempt to stop the vehicle with the emergency lights and siren on his squad car. By this time, additional squad cars were also following the vehicle with their lights and sirens on.

Just south of the intersection with County Road 70, the subject vehicle slowed down and Officer Stevens expertly executed a pursuit intervention technique that safely stopped the subject vehicle. The suspect vehicle came to a stop and the driver attempted to accelerate away again, but the assisting squads boxed the vehicle in. As the officers were taking the driver into custody it appeared that the driver was trying to smoke a drug pipe. The suspect was safely taken into custody and placed in Dakota County Jail. The suspect was later charged with two felony and multiple misdemeanor criminal counts related to the arrest.

TWO-VEHICLE CRASH WITH INJURIES

Officers responded to a two-vehicle crash one night this week at the intersection of
CR 46 and I-35 that left three people injured with non-life threatening injuries. The two vehicles involved suffered significant damage, but the occupants of the vehicles were spared more serious injuries due to the deployment of the airbags in the vehicles. One vehicle that was struck from the side was equipped with side airbags that helped to protect the vehicle occupants. One driver was cited for a traffic violation in the crash.

DETECTIVE GRADUATES

Detective Kelli Coughlin graduated from the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) Police Supervision and Management Certificate Program in a ceremony at the BCA in St. Paul [recently]. The keynote speaker at the graduation ceremony was Dakota County Sheriff Dave Bellows, who started his law enforcement career as a Lakeville police officer. Detective Coughlin had to complete 98 P.O.S.T. approved credit hours (56 required course hours and 42 elective course hours) in a wide variety of police supervision topics to earn the BCA Management and Supervision Certificate. Detective Coughlin was presented with a desk clock from the BCA at the graduation ceremony.

WEEKLY LPD SNAPSHOT

Sampling of LPD activity for the week of May 30 – June 6, 2013

Traffic crashes 2 Alarms 28 Animal Calls 45 Medical Emergency Calls 28 Thefts 17 Traffic Stops 175