Star Tribune
Police fatally shot woman in North Branch after she didn’t respond to orders to drop gun
State investigators say that a woman with a gun in a field near her home in North Branch, Minn., was shot by police last week after she did not acknowledge orders to drop the weapon.
Jamie Ann Crabtree, 36, was killed on the night of June 27 during an encounter with officers in a field near her home in the 38900 block of 3rd Avenue. Police said Crabtree was armed with a handgun, intoxicated and suicidal when officers confronted her.
The state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA), which is leading the investigation into the shooting, released a preliminary rundown Wednesday of the encounter:
Officers responded to a report of a woman, later identified as Crabtree, walking down the street with a bottle of alcohol and a gun in a case. The officers ordered her to drop the gun, which she did not acknowledge.
Officer Kyle Miller deployed pepper ball rounds. Then, at the time Crabtree can be seen on squad car camera video “appearing to point an object at the officers,” officer Duane Southworth shot her multiple times with his rifle, the agency synopsis read.
Nicholas Williams, Crabtree’s husband, told the Star Tribune two days after the shooting that she was on her cellphone at the time she was shot. He added that she would suffer seizures when she drank and had been in therapy for mental illness.
BCA said its crime scene personnel recovered a handgun, a gun case and rifle cartridge casings at the scene.
There is officer-worn body camera and squad car camera video that captured portions of the incident. BCA agents are reviewing all available video as part of their investigation.
Once the investigation is complete, the BCA will present its findings without a charging recommendation to for review by the Washington County Attorney’s Office, which is stepping on for the Chisago County Attorney’s Office in order to avoid an apparent conflict of interest.
Both officers are on standard critical incident leave. Miller has 1½ years of law enforcement experience. Southworth has two years of law enforcement experience.
Since 2000, police in Minnesota have killed at least 240 people, including nine this year and 11 in the past 11 months, according to a Star Tribune database.
Two people from Minnetonka were killed late Friday afternoon when their GMC Suburban ran a stop sign and was struck by a GMC Yukon headed north on Hwy. 169 west of Palisade, Minn.
According to the State Patrol, Marlo Dean Baldwin, 92, and Elizabeth Jane Baldwin, 61, were dead at the scene. The driver of the Suburban, a 61-year-old Minnetonka man, was taken to a hospital with life-threatening injuries.
The Suburban, pulling a trailer, was headed east on Grove Street/County Rd. 3 at about 5:15 p.m. when it failed to stop at Hwy. 169 and was struck by the northbound Yukon. The Yukon then struck two westbound vehicles stopped at the intersection.
Four people from Zimmerman, Minn., in the Yukon, including the driver, were taken to HCMC with life-threatening injuries, while two passengers were treated for non-life-threatening injuries. Three girls in the Yukon ranged in age from 11 to 15.
The drivers of the two vehicles struck by the Yukon were not injured, the State Patrol said. Road conditions were dry at the time of the accident, and alcohol was not believed to have been a factor. All involved in the accident were wearing a seat belt except for Elizabeth Baldwin.
Hill City police and the Aitkin County Sheriff’s Office assisted at the scene.
Amid the cacophony and chaos of the pregame preparation before a recent Minnetonka High School football game, an exceptional group of six girls is gathered together among the school’s deep and talented cheerleading and dance teams.
The cheerleaders, a national championship-winning program of 40 girls, dot the track around the football field. As the clock ticks down to kickoff and their night of choreographed routines begins, the six girls, proudly wearing Minnetonka blue T-shirts emblazoned with “Skippers Nation” and shaking shiny pom-poms, swirl around the track, bristling with excited energy.
Their circumstances are no different from any of the other cheerleaders with one notable exception: The girls on this team have special needs.
They’re members of the Minnetonka Sparklers, a squad of cheerleaders made up solely of girls with special needs.
A football game at Minnetonka High School is an elaborate production. The Skippers’ recent homecoming victory over Shakopee brought an announced crowd of 8,145. And that is just paying attendees; it doesn’t include school staffers, coaches, dance team, marching band, concession workers, media members and others going about their business attached to the game.
The Sparklers program, now in its 12th season, was the brainchild of Marcy Adams, a former Minnetonka cheerleader who initiated the program in her senior year of high school. Adams has been coach of the team since its inception, staying on through her tenure as a cheerleader at the University of Minnesota.
She started the program after experiencing the Unified Sports program at Minnetonka. The unified sports movement at high schools brings together student-athletes with cognitive or physical disabilities and athletes with no disabilities to foster relationships, understanding and compassion through athletics. Many Minnesota schools offer unified sports.
“I grew up in a household that valued students with special needs and valued inclusion,” Adams said. “I saw a need to give to those students. At Minnetonka, we have a strong Unified program, and this was a great opportunity to build relationships and offer mentorship opportunities.”
Elite runners are in a league of their own.
To get a sense of how far ahead elite runners are compared to the rest of us, the Minnesota Star Tribune took a look at how their times compare to the average marathon participant.
The 2022 Twin Cities Marathon men’s winner was Japanese competitor Yuya Yoshida, who ran the marathon in a time of 2 hours, 11 minutes and 28 seconds, for an average speed of 11.96 mph. He averaged 5 minutes and 2 seconds per mile.
That’s more than twice the speed of the average competitor across both the men’s and women’s categories, of 5.89 mph, according to race results site Mtec. The average participant finished in 4 hours, 26 minutes and 56 seconds. That comes out to an average time of 10 minutes and 11 seconds per mile.
And taking it to the most extreme, the fastest-ever marathon runner, Kelvin Kiptum of Kenya, finished the 2023 Chicago Marathon in 2 hours and 35 seconds, for an average pace of about 13 mph. Kiptum averaged 4 minutes and 36 seconds per mile.
Here is a graphic showing these differences in average marathon speed.
