Star Tribune
Man admits driving drunk, killing other driver in head-on crash in southwestern Minnesota
A Marshall man has admitted that he was driving drunk this spring when he crossed the centerline of a southwestern Minnesota highway and collided head-on with an SUV, killing the driver and seriously injuring two other people.
Kaw La, 43, agreed Tuesday in Lyon County District Court to plead guilty to one count of criminal vehicular homicide and two counts of criminal vehicular operation in connection with the collision on April 29 that killed Shawn M. Lemburg, 29, of nearby Walnut Grove.
The plea agreement calls for La to receive a sentence of 4 3⁄4 years. With credit for time in jail since his arrest, La can expect to serve slightly more than 2 3⁄4 years of his term in prison and the balance on supervised release. Court records do not show a date for sentencing.
According to the charges:
Joshua Tolley, 33, a passenger in Lemburg’s SUV, told a state trooper that he and his partner were heading south on Hwy. 23 northeast of Marshall about 8:10 p.m. when La’s pickup truck crossed the centerline.
La told the trooper he drank a small amount of beer that evening. The trooper saw three cold bottles of beer in the pickup. One was empty. A preliminary breath test at the hospital on the night of the crash showed La had a blood alcohol content of 0.15%. A follow-up blood test yielded a 0.17% reading, more than twice the legal limit for driving in Minnesota.
Tolley suffered broken legs, a fractured wrist, bruised lungs and cuts to his face. A passenger in La’s pickup, Nay Moo, 30, of Springdale, Wash., also was severely injured.
A 63-year-old Eveleth man died from injuries suffered in a house fire in the northern Minnesota city Friday morning.
Dale Wallander of rural Eveleth was found with burns covering most of his body at the end of the driveway to his house in the 7100 block of Antoinette Road in Eveleth at about 11:26 a.m. Friday, according to a press release from the St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office.
Law enforcement arrived to find his house engulfed in flames. Wallander was transported to a metro area hospital by Life Link air medical service, but died of his injuries, according to the Sheriff’s Office.
The cause of the fire is under investigation by the Sheriff’s Office and the State Fire Marshal.
Brooklyn Park police arrested two people Saturday in connection with an early-morning shooting that left one man dead.
Police responded to a shooting in the 7900 block of Lee Avenue North at about 4:36 a.m. Saturday, and found a man with a gunshot wound, according to a Brooklyn Park Police Department press release. The man was pronounced dead at the scene and hasn’t yet been identified.
Later Saturday, Brooklyn Park detectives arrested two suspects who are being held at the Hennepin County Jail, according to police.
“We passed three of them and we did it [in a] bipartisan [way],” said Walz, who represented southern Minnesota in Congress for a dozen years before running for governor.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz holds Matt Kucharski’s dog, Libby, a 6-year-old German Shorthaired Pointer, to give her a drink during the annual Minnesota Governor’s Pheasant Hunting Opener. (Anthony Souffle)
Following the event, Walz’s motorcade wound its way north and east across farm country, past combines in fields harvesting corn, to downtown Sleepy Eye, where he slipped into a crowded brewery. In many ways, the trip resembled any year for a pheasant opener, save this time the motorcade, a dozen vehicles long, stretched out the back side of a downtown Sleepy Eye alleyway.
One patron, who declined to give her name but said she grew up in Madelia and lived in New Ulm, was purchasing a six-pack of beers when she told the bartender, “Is that Walz? I don’t got time for that guy.”
Later, when Walz briefly emerged from a side room, a chorus of cheers reached him from the balcony, before he hustled out to the motorcade.
Eveleth man dies of injuries from northern Minnesota house fire
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Eveleth man dies of injuries from northern Minnesota house fire
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