Star Tribune
Suspect arrested after threats triggered University of Minnesota safety alerts
A man suspected of threatening to shoot students at the University of Minnesota was arrested Thursday afternoon after an apparent standoff at his home in southwestern Minnesota.
Joseph Rongstad, 41, was arrested just after 4:15 p.m. “safely, without incident,” Chippewa County Sheriff Derek Olson said in a Facebook post.
Rongstad was booked into Chippewa County Jail on probable cause for felony-level threats of violence, Olson wrote in a follow-up post.
The Sheriff’s Office said Rongstad began threatening to shoot students in posts made Wednesday on Facebook. The threats triggered a series of Thursday morning alerts by the university to stay away from campus. It was later determined Rongstad never came to the Twin Cities.
Rongstad is a former mayor of Watson, a town of less than 200 people in Chippewa County, about 135 miles west of the Twin Cities. He also posted on Facebook about the standoff before it was resolved.
Early Thursday afternoon, the university issued a campus-wide all-clear message, saying the authorities had found and “contained” the suspect. “Campus can resume normal operations,” the message said.
“My understanding is Chippewa County sheriff’s [deputies] have this individual surrounded in his home,” university spokesman Jake Ricker told the Star Tribune.
The Sheriff’s Office did not immediately confirm details of the apparent standoff, but it earlier confirmed that Rongstad was suspected of posting the threats.
As the situation in Watson continued into the afternoon, Rongstad kept up his social media posts, including a photo of an armored tactical vehicle outside his window just before 1 p.m.
Although the Star Tribune generally does not identify suspects before they are charged, Rongstad’s name and other identifying information were widely disseminated during the brief manhunt.
The university began issuing safety alerts about 7:20 a.m. The school said its police force and other agencies had sent additional officers to the campus.
“Public Safety has received a specific threat to shoot persons on the [Twin Cities] campus … from Joseph Mark Rongstad,” the initial university safety notice read.
A second alert soon after said campus operations would proceed normally, but employees were encouraged to work remotely. Students initially did not receive the same direction to avoid campus, but shortly after 10 a.m., another alert warned them to stay away.
A final alert about 1 p.m. confirmed that authorities had found Rongstad in his home in Watson and were working to arrest him.
Olson said the Sheriff’s Office notified the university when the flurry of threatening posts began Wednesday.
Olson said he then had deputies “staged at the [man’s] residence” should Rongstad appear. He said Rongstad’s relatives were at the home as well.
Ricker said he was not aware of any connection Rongstad has to the university. The threats, he said, did not single out any individuals but rather were a “general threat of gun violence.”
Olson told the Star Tribune that Rongstad’s hourslong, threat-filled rant was posted on his landscape company’s Facebook page.
Other postings made explicit threats to Olson and Chippewa County judges Thomas Van Hon and Keith Helgeson. In 2016, Van Hon ordered Rongstad civilly committed for six months as mentally ill and chemically dependent.
Court records show that Rongstad has a criminal history in Minnesota that includes convictions for burglary, theft, drunken driving and illicit drug possession.
In 2021, he was convicted of burglary after driving a tractor through the narthex of a Lutheran church in Watson, where he was elected mayor in 2012. A police officer found Rongstad wrapped in a blanket on the altar, according to the criminal complaint.
A judge set aside a 15-month prison sentence and ordered Rongstad jailed for 30 days and placed on probation for five years. The threats to the university violate his probationary terms.
In 2016, Rongstad was sentenced to nine months in jail after pleading guilty to burglarizing the home of a man who succeeded him as mayor. At the time, The deal also dismissed charges from when he allegedly fired a rifle through the sunroof of his truck while he was “trying to get away from the corpses that were after him,” according to court documents.
The U.S. Department of Education wrote in a report released in September that “active shooter incidents represent a small subset of the possible gun violence or serious violent incidents that occur at schools.
The department recorded 18 such incidents at colleges from 2000 to 2021, though researchers noted that many schools moved online in 2020 during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Staff writers Liz Navratil and Greta Kaul contributed to this report.
Star Tribune
Sentencing set for Monday morning for a Minnesota man who was drunk and speeding when he hit a woman’s SUV and killed her.
A man with a history of driving drunk received a four-year term Monday for being intoxicated and speeding when he hit a woman’s SUV on a southern Minnesota highway and killed her.
John R. Deleo, 54, of Lake Crystal, Minn., was sentenced in Brown County District Court after pleading guilty to criminal vehicular homicide in connection with the crash on Aug. 17, 2023, in New Ulm at Hwy. 68 and S. 15th Street that killed 82-year-old Sharon A. Portner, of New Ulm.
With credit for the two days he was in jail after his arrest, Deleo is expected to serve the first 2⅔ years years of his term in prison and the balance on supervised release.
A week ahead of sentencing, defense attorney James Kuettner asked the court to spare his client prison and put him on probation for up to five years.
Kuettner pointed out in his filing that Deleo stayed at the crash scene and attempted “to aid Portner, and he left [her] side only when directed to by law enforcement.”
The attorney also noted that Deleo has been sober since the crash, and therefore, at a particularly low risk for reoffending.
According to the criminal complaint:
Police arrived to find the two damaged vehicles near 15th and S. Broadway streets. Emergency responders took Portner to New Ulm Medical Center, where she died that day.
ROCHESTER – The defense for Shane Roper, the former state trooper charged for his role in a crash that killed Owatonna teenager Olivia Flores, has asked the court to dismiss eight of the nine charges against him.
In a motion filed Oct. 24, Roper’s attorneys said the state has “failed to meet its burden of offering direct evidence tending to demonstrate that [Roper’s] actions, or negligence, were the proximate cause of death or bodily harm.”
Roper, 32, faces nine criminal charges related to the May 18 crash, including felony charges of second-degree manslaughter and criminal vehicular homicide. Both charges carry maximum sentences of 10 years in jail.
The only charge the defense did not ask to have dismissed is a misdemeanor for careless driving, which carries a maximum sentence of 90 days in jail.
Among the other requests made to the court, Roper’s defense asked for a change of venue outside of Olmsted County, citing the extensive media coverage of the case. The defense said “jury pools have surely been tainted and a fair trial cannot be had” in the county.
Roper’s attorney, Eric Nelson of Halberg Criminal Defense, also argued that any evidence related to Roper’s prior speeding or traffic incidents should be precluded as evidence in the case.
In the five years leading up to the crash, Roper had been disciplined by the State Patrol on four separate occasions for careless or reckless driving, including a February 2019 crash that injured another officer.
District Judge Christa Daily has not responded to the motions. Roper is scheduled to be back in court Nov. 21 for a pretrial settlement conference.
Star Tribune
Who is comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who insulted Puerto Rico at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally?
NEW YORK — Of the nearly 30 speakers who recently warmed up the crowd for Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe got the most attention for racist remarks.
”I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called Puerto Rico,” he said, later including lewd and racist comments about Latinos, Jewish and Black people.
The comments have led to condemnation from Democrats and Puerto Rican celebrities, with Ricky Martin sharing a clip of Hinchcliffe’s set, captioned: “This is what they think of us.”
The Trump campaign took the rare step of distancing itself from Hinchcliffe. ”This joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or the campaign,” senior adviser Danielle Alvarez said in a statement.
Here’s what to know about Hinchcliffe, his comedic styling and the response to his Madision Square Garden comments.
Hinchcliffe, raised in Youngstown, Ohio, is a stand-up comedian who specializes in the roast style, in which comedians take the podium to needle a celebrity victim with personal and often tasteless jokes. He has written and appeared on eight Comedy Central Roasts, including ones for Snoop Dogg and Tom Brady.
Even fellow comedians aren’t immune. At the Snoop Dogg roast, Hichcliffe made a joke referencing comedian Luenell, who is Black, being on the Underground Railroad. Of the honoree, he said: ”Snoop, you look like the California Raisin that got hooked on heroin.”
