A Minnesota-native wounded in the Las Vegas mass shooting is recovering at home. Philip Aurich was shot several times when a gunman opened fire during a country music festival earlier this month. His family says he was released from the Las Vegas hospital on Monday. They say Aurich will require home nurse visits for a while. 58 people were killed in the Vegas shooting and more than 500 injured.
Authorities are investigating after an officer-involved shooting left a suspect injured. Investigators say the man fired late Monday night at officers and a sheriff’s deputy responding to a possible assault. The deputy fired back and wounded the suspect, who was taken to the hospital with noncritical injuries. State investigators are looking into whether squad car cameras captured the shooting.
A northwestern Minnesota man who has complained to authorities about low-flying aircraft over his property faces attempted murder and other charges, after police say he fired at and hit a single-engine plane October 6th. 51-year-old Chad Olson from Fertile allegedly said he “was using lethal force to defend himself because the airplanes were engaged in terrorism.” The pilot of the plane found a bullet hole close to the fuselage the next day and estimated damage at 20 thousand dollars.
A Minnesota judge has taken the unusual step of allowing four protesters to use a “necessity defense,” enabling them to present evidence that the threat of climate change from Canadian tar sands crude justified their attempt to shut down two Enbridge Energy pipelines last year. Emily Johnston and Annette Klapstein acknowledge they turned the shut-off valves on two pipelines in Minnesota as part of a coordinated action against five pipelines in northern states. A total of 11 activists were charged. Johnston and Klapstein, of the Seattle area, say that as far as their team knows, this is the first time a judge has allowed a full necessity defense on a climate change issue. They’re due to go on trial December. 11. Two co-defendants who filmed them will stand trial later.
A former Mendota Heights police sergeant who was fired last year is getting a new job in law enforcement. The City of Farmington has hired Bobby Lambert as a patrol officer. The veteran cop was fired in June 2016 for authorizing an illegal search during the investigation of a drug overdose death. Lambert challenged the firing, but the decision was upheld by an arbitrator in March.
Former Twin Cities auto mogul Denny Hecker, convicted on federal fraud charges, has been moved from an Illinois facility to the Duluth Federal Prison Camp. The Star Tribune reports it’s the latest in a string of transfers for 65-year-old Hecker, who has served seven years of a ten-year sentence and is not due to be released from federal custody until next summer.
JetBlue is coming to the Twin Cities next year. Starting in May, the airline will offer three daily nonstop, round-trip flights between the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport and Boston. JetBlue is the nation’s sixth largest airline, serving more than 100 cities in the U.S.