GENOA, Wis. – A sheriff’s deputy shot and killed a driver who was speeding away from a traffic stop with a second deputy hanging onto the vehicle. Bodycams or dashcams recorded what happened, said Vernon Sheriff Roy Torgerson, but the video wasn’t released immediately. It was believed, however, tyat the deputy was dragged 20 feet before the fellow deputy shot the driver. Neither deputy was injured. The driver, whose name was not released immediately, was dead at the scene. The incident was abut 5:55 p.m. on State Highway 35 and Gianoli Road, just south of Genoa near the site of a now-decommissioned and dismantled nuclear power plant on the Mississippi River. The deputies had been making a welfare check at a house when they saw the subject driving away. They stopped the vehicle. As one deputy approached the vehicle, the driver sped away, reportedly at a high rate of speed, with the deputy hanging on to the side of the vehicle.
Genoa landmarks remembered. The Dairyland Power coal-fired power station was demolished in 2022. A pioneer nuclear plant at the site was shut down in 1987 after 25 years service.