Star Tribune
Incident with man suspected of University of Minnesota threats began a day earlier, warrants show
A man suspected of threatening to kill students at the University of Minnesota also threatened specific members of his local Sheriff’s Office and judges, new search warrants show.
Joseph Rongstad, 41, was arrested the afternoon of Jan. 11 following an hours-long standoff with the Chippewa County Sheriff’s Office and other agencies at his home at 319 Park Av. in the southwestern MInnesota town of Watson. As of Wednesday, he had yet to be formally charged.
Prior to the threats targeting students, Rongstad allegedly made a long string of unhinged Facebook posts on his landscaping business’ page, beginning on Jan. 10, a day prior to his arrest. Some posts made fraudulent claims he had a “nuke bomb” in Fargo, North Dakota.
The posts came from his business’ Facebook page, All Time Curbing & Landscape, which only Rongstad had access to, according to the Sheriff’s Office warrants.
Chippewa deputies first responded to Rongstad’s home around 3 p.m. on Jan. 10 to conduct a welfare check, a search warrant states.
The deputies were unable to contact him. A little after 11 p.m. the officers were called back after new posts surfaced that targeted children, and a notice to “apprehend and detain” was put out, according to a warrant.
Rongstad’s mother told a deputy she believed her son was barricaded in a second-floor bedroom that she could not get into, the warrant said.
Rongstad’s mother informed deputies she disabled one of his cell phones around 4:30 p.m., and that he had a second cell phone, which Rongstad continued to post from according to the warrant filings.
The posts a little after midnight included explicit threats to Chippewa County Sheriff Derek Olson, and Chippewa County judges Thomas Van Hon and Keith Helgeson.
Many of Rongstad’s posts went on to target U of M students. Campus alerts were put in place but later dropped when it turned out his threats were fake and he was surrounded at his home.
After bringing in a SWAT team and a bomb squad from Minneapolis, Rongstad was arrested without incident around 4:15 p.m. on Jan. 11, Olson said in a post.
In 2016, Van Hon ordered Rongstad civilly committed for six months as mentally ill and chemically dependent.
On Friday, Olson noted that the landscaping business Rongstad runs was “very successful in the past when he was a healthier person.” Rongstad served for a time as mayor of Watson after being elected to the post in 2012. The town has a population of less than 200 people.
He remained lodged at Chippewa County Jail as of Wednesday night.
The Minnesota Department of Transportation closed part of a state highway Wednesday evening near Austin because of a “major hazardous materials release” in the area.
Hwy. 56 from Hayfield to Waltham, a stretch covering about five miles, was closed in both directions and drivers were directed to follow a detour to Blooming Prairie on U.S. Hwy. 218.
No information on the hazardous materials released was immediately available.
A federal judge dismissed a civil lawsuit against Minnesota state trooper Ryan Londregan in the shooting death of Ricky Cobb II during a 2023 traffic stop.
The decision is the latest development in a case that has drawn heated debate over excessive use of force by law enforcement. Criminal charges against Londregan were dismissed by Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty in June, saying the prosecution didn’t have the evidence to proceed with a case.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Nancy E. Brasel granted Londregan’s motion to dismiss the civil suit, arguing he acted reasonably when he opened fire as Cobb’s vehicle lurched forward with another state trooper partly inside.
Londregan’s attorney Chris Madelsaid Wednesday that it’s been a “long, grueling journey to justice. Ryan Londregan has finally arrived.”
On July 31, 2023, the two troopers pulled over Cobb, 33, on Interstate 94 in north Minneapolis for driving without taillights and later learned he was wanted for violating a felony domestic no-contact order. Cobb refused commands to exit the car.
With Seide partly inside the car while trying to unbuckle Cobb’s seatbelt, the car moved forward. Londregan then opened fire, hitting Cobb twice.
In her decision, Brasel said the troopers were mandated by state law to make an arrest given Cobb’s domestic no-contact order violation. She said it was objectively reasonable for Londregan to believe Seide was in immediate danger as the car moved forward on a busy highway, which would make his use of force reasonable.
GREEN BAY, Wis. — Donald Trump walked down the steps of the Boeing 757 that bears his name, walked across a rain-soaked tarmac and, after twice missing the handle, climbed into the passenger seat of a white garbage truck that also carried his name.
The former president, once a reality TV star known for his showmanship, wanted to draw attention to a remark made a day earlier by his successor, Democratic President Joe Biden, that suggested Trump’s supporters were garbage. Trump has used the remark as a cudgel against his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.
”How do you like my garbage truck?” Trump said, wearing an orange and yellow safety vest over his white dress shirt and red tie. ”This is in honor of Kamala and Joe Biden.”
Trump and other Republicans were facing pushback of their own for comments by a comedian at a weekend Trump rally who disparaged Puerto Rico as a ”floating island of garbage.” Trump then seized on a comment Biden made on a late Wednesday call that “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.”
The president tried to clarify the comment afterward, saying he had intended to say Trump’s demonization of Latinos was unconscionable. But it was too late.
On Thursday, after arriving in Green Bay, Wisconsin, for an evening rally, Trump climbed into the garbage truck, carrying on a brief discussion with reporters while looking out the window — similar to what he did earlier this month during a photo opportunity he staged at a Pennsylvania McDonalds.
He again tried to distance himself from comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, whose joke had set off the firestorm, but Trump did not denounce it. He also said he did not need to apologize to Puerto Ricans.
”I don’t know anything about the comedian,” Trump said. ”I don’t know who he is. I’ve never seen him. I heard he made a statement, but it was a statement that he made. He’s a comedian, what can I tell you. I know nothing about him.”
