WINONA, Minn. – Police arrested a whisky-chugging man who, angry with his fiancé, had threatened suicide out a third-floor apartment window downtown. The man, Drake Mathew Brown-Lisowski, age 25, was gone when police arrived. Officers found him shoeless and shirtless at the Masterpiece Hall construction site across the street. He was “very intoxicated,” police said. This was about 2 a.m. in the 150 block of West Fifth Street. The girlfriend, age 22, had called police after what she described as a scary assault. By her account, Brown-Laskowski was upset that she had gone out with friends to downtown bars and hadn’t invited him along. When she returned to their apartment, he had downed most of a bottle of whisky and was angry, she told police. This is what happened next, she said: After an argument he chased her room to room. She grabbed the whisky: “You’ve had enough.”  She smashed the bottle, which shattered, which fueled his anger. She fled to a bedroom. He caught the door before it closed and threw a hard-shell picnic cooler at her. He pinned her to the wall with a piece of furniture and stormed out. She freed herself and found he had ripped out a window screen and had his legs hanging out. She called 911. By the time officers arrived, he was gone. They found him less than a block away at the Masterpiece site. He was arrested and charged with domestic assault causing fear and injury. Police said the woman had a bruise from the hurled picnic cooler.

Brown-Lisowski. Reportedly upset that he wasn’t invited along on a girls-night-out at the bars.

WINONA, Minn. – A Winona teen-ager accused of beating up his father was released from custody pending further court hearings to be scheduled by the judge. The boy, age 17, had been booked for domestic assault, including a choke hold. The boy was held overnight 34 miles away in Caledonia, the nearest jail with a pod for juveniles. He was transported back to Winona for the court appearance. The assault was at the family home on the East Side. The father, age 54, fled the house rather than risk further injury.

Earlier: Charge: Upset teen-age son punches, chokes dad

ROCHESTER, Minn. – A Rochester woman has been charged belatedly with stabbing a man in an altercation over a dog fight near a park. Charged was Debra Ann Pruitt, age 63, whose dog reportedly started it all. The man told police he was walking his dog home when a dog belonging to Pruitt attacked his dog:  Pruitt pulled a switchblade to stab his dog. The man said that he pushed Pruitt to save his dog and ended pinning her to the ground to take the switchblade away. At that point she stabbed him, he said. The man showed bloody cuts on an arm to officers. The incident was March 17 abut 10 p.m. Video from a door-ring video confirmed the man’s account, police said. Pending further hearings, Pruitt was released on her own recognizance.

WINONA, Minn. – A man wandering at the Levee at 9:45 p.m. explained to police that he had fled his own house because his 17-year-old son had punched him in the face. The son was outraged, the dad said, because his electronic devices had been taken away. The dad said the kid hadn’t been going to school or helping with household chores. The dad invited the kid to sit down in a bedroom to discuss the behavioral issues, at which point, he said, the kid went wild. The father said the kid punched him with a closed fist, choked him, and busted his glasses. Police went to the home, in the 400 bock of Hamilton Street. The son admitted the attack, officers said. They took him away. The father returned home, still showing a big bruise on his forehead. The son was charged with domestic assault causing fear and harm.

RED WING, Minn. – A Red Wing driver was injured when he struck a stalled car at the Plum Street fork off State Highway 58 inside the city limits. The stalled car was unoccupied. William James Auchampach, 78, was taken to the Red Wing hospital with sustainable injuries. The accident was about 1:15.p.m. Auchampach’s 2003 Chevrolet Impala rolled and came to rest upside down.

MINNEAPOLIS – Under Congressional pressure, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said the arrest of a foreign student Thursday at the University of Minnesota was because of a drunk-driving arrest. Details in the agency statement were scant – no name, no age, no home country. Homeland Security, which oversees the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, said the student had “a prior criminal history for a DUI.” One DUI?  Dozen? Any conviction? The reaction on campus was incredulousness. While drunken driving is hardly virtuous, does it warrant arrest by a team of federal secret agents and deportation? Most DUI arrests are misdemeanors handled by local police and local courts and punishable with a fine. The University of Minnesota arrest was within days of high-profile student arrests at Columbia and Tufts universities for expressing objections to the Israeli war on Gaza. About the arrest at the University of Minnesota, the sparse Homeland statement said it was “not related to student protests.”

Earlier: ICE arrest of UM grad student baffles friends

Earlier: University denies any part in deportation arrest

Earlier: Trump immigration agents take UM student away

ROCHESTER, Minn. – A nurse at the federal prison hospital on Rochester’s East Side has been indicted for an extended sexual relationship with a patient inmate. It began in a shower room in April 2024, the grand jury indictment says. Charged is Jessica Lynn Larson, age 37. Larson moved to Iowa after the U.S. Bureau of Prisons placed her on administrative leave and began an investigation. A Larson colleague on the prison staff had alerted a supervisor of the relationship, the indictment says: Investigators found letters from the prisoner inside Larson’s backpack.  Confronted, she claimed to be victim. She said the man had threatened to hurt her children if she refused his advances or reported him.  Two months later, after being placed on administrative leave, Larson drove more than 600 miles from her new home in Iowa to Ohio and mailed a love letter to the prisoner. The man had been transferred to another federal facility.

Rochester hospital orison. Certified for 780 male inmates for specialized or long-term medical or mental health care.

WINONA, Minn. – A burglar has been marauding rural areas for houses where no one is home, Winona County Sheriff Ron Ganrude said in an alert to citizens. Incidents also have been reported in neighboring Fremont, Houston and Wabasha counties. There is a suspect, Ganrude said:

> A black man, age 69, 5-foot-10, 215 pounds, brown eyes, black hair.

> His vehicle has been described as a maroon Jaguar with Minnesota license plates.

> Another vehicle is a light blue Chrysler Town and Country minivan.

No burglaries have been reported so far, but the man has an established pattern, Ganrude said: He drives to a house and knocks. If there’s an answer, he makes up an excuse for being there and leaves. If no answer, his modus operandi suggests he will break in. Ganrude invited tips about suspicious behaviour that fits the pattern.

WINONA, Minn. – Police were called to a small-scale rumble at the Kwik Trip at the Huff and Sarnia intersection, but things had settled down by the time officers arrived. This was about 1:15 a.m. Police were told that four college-age men had piled out of a van and begun throwing punches. No one appeared injured, police said. Officers gave each combatant a form to describe what happened and encouraged them to drop off the forms at the police station in the morning. Whether charges are filed depends on what the men write down. Generally in these situations nobody bothers.

WINONA, Minn. — A portion of West Broadway will be closed beginning Monday for seven months for major repairs. The street is a major connection between downtown and the Far West End and Goodview. Autos from Hilbert Street to the railroad tracks to South Baker Street will be detoured on residential streets, trucks on the parallel Fifth Street.

Campus outrage. Demonstrators at the University of Minnesota protest the arrest of graduate student Doğukan Günaydin. He was taken by federal agents without explanation ad hauled away in cuffs.  Image: Aaron Nesheim

Why the arest? Where’d they take him?

MNNEAPOLIS – The University of Minnesota student who was ambushed by federal immigration agents Thursday and hauled away was 28-year-old Doğukan Günaydin, friends said. His whereabouts in federal custody were unknown because ICE agency operate secretary without any local accountability. Günaydin was taken on a sidewalk outside his St. Paul residence. Friends said he was a Turkish citizen with a student visa. He was a Turkish citizen with a U.S. student visa. He was a graduate of St. Olaf College in Northfield and was pursuing an advanced degree at the University of Minnesota’s prestigious Carlton Graduate School of Business. Friends were baffled at the arrest. Günaydin had no idea that ICE agents had secretly staked out his residence and laid in wait for him, they said,. There have been similar arrests at other campuses, including that of a female student at Tufts who had written an opinion piece in the campus newspaper that President Donald Trump regarded as antisemitic. Günaydin’s friends at the University of Minnesota described him as apolitical. By the Trump administration’s own accounting, there have been 32,800 arrests of foreign nationals, most with visas, in the past 10 weeks. Trump has described the arrests as necessary to rid the nation of foreign murderers, rapists and drug-peddlers.

Earlier: University denies any part in deportation arrest

Earlier: Trump immigration agents take UM student away

Günaydin. In his undergraduate days at St. Olaf.

MANKATO, Minn. – A foreign student at the Mankato state university was snatched from his off-campus residence by federal deportation agents. The arrest occurred Friday, said Edward Inch, the university president. Inch said that agents from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted the arrest. The agency, he said, did not make an advance courtesy alert to the university or local police that it was in town. Inch said that the agency has ignored questions about why the arrest was made. Inch said he learned through other sources that the student was taken 60 miles to the Freeborn County jail in Albert Lea — one of only three jails in all of Minnesota that cooperates with ICE to hold its detainees. Consistent with student privacy protocols, Inch did not release the student’s name nor the degree the student was seeking nor the student’s country of origin nor ethnicity. There was doubt that the arrest was part of an ICE crackdown on foreign college students as part the Trump ethnic-cleansing pogrom. Since Trump took office in January, ICE has made 32,800 arrests nationwide, although a focus on college students has been only in recent weeks. Inch said he has contacted elected officials to assist in “stopping this activity within our community of learners.” Of MSU-Mankato’s 10,000 students, 1,000 are foreign nationals from 100 countries.

Earlier: University denies any part in deportation arrest

Earlier: Trump immigration agents take UM student away

Earlier: How many Duluth alien arrests? ICE won’t say

Earlier: ICE jailing immigrant detainees in Albert Lea

ST.PAUL, Minn. – Minnesota’s attorney general, Keith Ellison, has ended speculation that he might run for the U.S. Senate. He endorsed Peggy Flanagan. In a fist-bumping session staged for television, Ellison praised Flanagan for public service back to when she was on the Minneapolis school board. Ellison, a Democrat, himself once a six-term member of Congress, said: “This is a time when we need leaders in Washington who have the guts to stand up and fight for us. My friend Peggy Flanagan has never backed down from a fight.” Flanagan is in her second term as lieutenant governor. The U.S. Senate seat is being vacated by the retirement of Democrat Tina Smith. Other announced candidates:

Important Endorsement. Peggy Flanagan from Attorney General Keith Ellison.

> Melisa López Franzen, a former Democratic state senator from south and west Minneapolis suburbs.

> Adam Schwarze, a Republican and former Navy SEAL who has never held public office.

> Royce White, a Republican and former professional basketball player, who lost a 2024 bid for the U.S. Senate.

On political observers’ shortlists still: Angie Craig, a Democrat in the U.S. House from south Twin Cities suburbs since 2019.

Earlier: Flanagan campaigning for U.S. Senate

Earlier: Walz: No on U.S. Senate bid; iffy on third term

Earlier: Walz doesn’t deny interest in U.S. Senate

PRESTON, Minn. – One of the twins accused in a 2023 crash that killed two children in an Amish buggy has been sentenced to 90 days in jail. Sarah Beth Petersen, age 36, was not the driver but switched places with her twin Samantha Jo in a scheme to confuse police and protect her sister, who was driving and reportedly high on meth.  Fillmore County Judge Jeremy Clinefelter issued the sentence. The judge also ordered Sarah Beth to 120 days of house arrest and to pay a $1,500 fine. The sister, Samantha Jo, remains in the process of negotiating a plea deal. If an agreement cannot be reached, Samantha Jo goes before a jury in July.

Earlier: Amish buggy deaths: One twin fesses up

Earlier: Trial set for twin for in Amish buggy deaths

Brooks Johnson (Minnesota Star Tribune, March 26, 2025): “Slaughterhouses Get Green Light to Increase Speeds, but Workers Say Not So Fast”

Louis Krauss (Minnesota Star Tribune, March 28, 2025): “How Does Law Enforcement Carry Out. Operations Like the One that Led to Justin Eichorn’s Arrest?”

 Heidi Overson (Our Wisconsin, April/May 2025): “Talk About Some Real Horsepower: Two Sheriff’s Deputies Mount Engaging Patrol in Vernon County”

BROOKLYN PARK, Minn.  — The owner of a light plane that nose-dived into a suburban home Saturday was USBank executive Terry Dolan, records show. Although an autopsy was yet to be completed, there was little doubt that Dolan, age 63, was piloting the plane. Initial reports feared four persons were aboard, but it’s now believed that Dolan was alone. The plane had departed Des Moines at 11:12 a.m. The crash was 70 minutes later – about six miles short of its destination in suburban Blaine. The Brooklyn Park house that was struck exploded in flames. The woman occupant was out walking the family dog. The husband, in the kitchen, managed to escape safely as the house erupted in flames.

Earlier: Plane nose-dives into house; four killed

Dolan. The $6.6 million a year operations vice president at giant Mnneapolis-based USBank. With USBank since 1998.

MADISON, Wis. – A LaCrosse meth dealer, Toudeng Thao, age 49, pleaded guilty in federal court to drug trafficking in several counties. Thao had bene arrested in January 2024 with a supply of meth in his vehicle. He admitted to trafficking meth from sources in Minnesota, California, Canada and Mexico. He told police he supplied six drug local distributors. The arrest had followed months of a mutli-agency investigation. The agencies included police in Campbell, LaCrosse, Onalaska and Prairie du Chien as well as the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation, and the West Central Wisconsin Metropolitan Enforcement Group.

WASHINGTON — Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota demanded that the Pentagon explain an “unbelievably dangerous” incident at Reagan National Airport across the Potomac River from the Capitol. “Why are your planes flying 500 feet below passenger jets full of Minnesotans headed from DCA to my state,” she asked. A collision between the Delta airliner and an Air Force T-38 was barely avoided. On the Delta flight were two pilots, three flight attendants and 131 passengers. The Delta flight, Number 2983, is flown regularly by members of the Minnesota congressional delegation for visits to their home districts.

Earlier: Near-miss for Minneapolis-bound airliner at Reagan