Star Tribune
Hennepin County firefighters elude nearly every kick to free flailing horse trapped in stall window
Firefighters dodged nearly every kick from a flailing trapped horse weighing at nearly two-thirds of a ton before it was freed from its stall window at western Hennepin County ranch, officials said Monday.
The equine extrication Sunday afternoon at the 61-acre Horse Play Ranch in Corcoran took 30 to 45 minutes during a mission that the firefighters were not trained to carry out, said Loretto Fire Chief Jeff Leuer, whose department serves a portion of the neighboring community.
The horse “was fine after it was extricated” from small opening roughly 5 feet up from the ground.
As the four firefighters sized up how to go about the task, the horse “was frightened and scared,” the chief said. “And it was in some pain. … It was trying to free itself, but we were able to calm it down and get it extricated.”
The firefighters removed one of the stall’s walls and cut some of the metal bars and made the window much larger to free the animal, the chief said.
Longtime ranch owner Mary Soligny said that 15-year-old King was brought into the stall from the pasture for some rest, “and he unexpectedly and quickly attempted to leap through the small feed window of his stall. … Horses sometimes do this. We don’t know why.”
Soligny said a call from her daughter brought her to the stall, where she quickly realized she needed the Fire Department to the rescue because “I don’t have the tools for this. I need strength, and I need numbers. He was definitely in peril because he had been stuck for an hour.”
Leuer said one of his firefighters received minor injuries during the tricky assignment, went the hospital for treatment and was soon released.
The horse inflicted the injury with a kick, “but I don’t know if you want to put that in the paper” where it landed, the chief said. “We’ll just say the groin area. He’s recovering. He’ll be fine.”
Transforming the heart of both downtowns, which have much larger buildings than old warehouses, is going to take a lot more money, creativity and time. Josh Talberg, managing director at downtown Minneapolis brokerage JLL, said with no major apartment buildings on the drawing board in either downtown, the fleet of empty office buildings present a golden opportunity to create more housing and lead both cities in a new direction.
“You can can certainly see the fundamentals improving, and you can feel that vibrancy, and that’s ultimately the foundation that’s needed to get investors to reinvest in the city,” he said. “But it’s not as if these 18-wheelers can turn on a dime.”
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.
