Minnesota prep
Football: Winona Winhawks 32, Austin Packers 0
Football: Blooming Prairie Amazing Bloomers 39, Winona Cotter Ramblers 8
Wisconsin prep
Football: Eau Claire Regis Ramblers 43, Osseo-Fairchildd Thunder 6
Two liquor vendors caught serving minor
WINONA, Minn. – Two licensed liquor vendors, Acoustic Cafe and River City Grill, failed the latest police compliance check on serving underage customers. Eleven other licensees passed. The checks, the third this school year, are a joint project of the Winona police and sheriff’s departments and the volunteer group Alliance for Subject Abuse Prevention. The goal, said Deputy Police Chief Jay Rasmussen, was to encourage license-holders to assure their operations comply with the law against serving minors. No arrests were made nor were citations issued in the “soft educational” project. Will there a fourth 2023 compliance check? Rasmussen said the goal was three this year. But he added: More are possible. “Next time,” he said, “the education will come with sanctions.” Liquor licenses are issued by the City Council and subject to revocation.
Police gig 11 liquor vendors in underage stings
Earlier: Cops sweep Port 507 for under-age drinkers: 10 found
Earlier: Winona bar compliance checks on hold
Compliance ratio
The pass-fail ratio has improved since previus compliance checks. April: 10 passed, six failed. Septenber: 11 passed, 12 failed. The latest check:
Failed
> River City Grill, in the Plaza Hotel, 1025 East U.S, Highway 61.
> Acoustic Cafe, 77 Lafayette Street
Passed
> AmericInn, 303 Pelzer Street.
> American Legion, 302 East Sarnia Street.
> Black Horse, 34648 Old Homer Road.
> Blooming Grounds, 50 East hird Street.
> Eagles Club, 210 East North Street.
> Fairfield Inn, 925 Bruski Drive.
> Highway 61 Liquor, 1213 Gilmore Avenue.
> Nosh Scratch Kitchen, 102 Walnut Street.
> Port 507, 128 West 2nd Street.
> Two Brothers, 129 West Third Street
> Walmart, 955 Frontenac Drive.
> Winona Athletic Club, 773 East Fifth Street.
State honchoing Glendorado drug-raid probe
GLENDORADO, Minn. – The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension has taken over the investigation of the drug-raid stand-off in which five police officers were wounded. Such is customary for shootings involving police. A Bureau spokesperson, Michelle Frascone, called the investigation “very active” but in “very early stages.” Frascone said that agents have begun processing evidence. She noted that video recorded by body cameras worn by officers as well as squad car cameras will be reviewed.
Verbatim
Frascone: “Incidents like what happened are scary and unsettling for the community. We want everybody to know that we are working as quickly as possible to provide answers.”
Hormel value takes hit on Wall Street
NEW YORK – Investors gave cool reception to the new Hormel Foods contract with its unionized workers. Hormel stock plunged to 9.8% to $32.67 – the lowest in more than five years. Hormel’s new four-year contract boosts wages as much as 6% a year. The drop in stock value came even though the company had staged a rosy investor event to offset news about the new labor deal. The company projected operating income growth of 5% to 7% by fiscal 2026. Besides its legacy neat products, most notably Spam, Hormel has other 40 other branded food products. Among them: Applegate, Planters and Skippy.
Man in Glendorado stand-off no stranger to cops
Untidy property. Police blocked the driveway with an armored vehicle and squad cars. Most of vehicles and debris on the property was Karl Holmberg’s, there to begin with.
Sheriff unsurprised at violent armed resistance
GLENDORADO, Minn. – The man arrested for shooting at police who had surrounded his rural home in a drug raid – and whose bullets struck five of them — was well-known to law enforcement people in the area, said Sheriff Troy Heck. The sheriff identified the man as Karl Thomas Holmberg, 64. This is an exchange from news conference after it was all over:
Reporter: “Have you had any previous interactions with Holmberg?”
Heck: “Yes.”
Reporter: “Were you surprised by the violence and his response?”
Heck: “No.”
Holmberg was taken into custody, ending a four-hour standoff. He had come out of ghe house and was itting shirtless =in a lawn chair. When he rose and began to run, a SWAT team sharpshooter fired a non-lethal projectile. The projectile exploded in a green puff on Holmberg’s torso. He fell. Even before he hit the ground, a police German shepherd K-9 lunged from 20 feet away and took Holmberg down. For Holmberg, the stand-off off was over. Agents rushed in on the K-9’s trail. Without resistance, Holmberg was led to a bench, where he sat to regain his equilibrium, then was placed on a stretcher and moved to a med-evac helicopter. He was flown 60 miles to a hospital in the Twin Cities for examination. His medical state wasn’t known immediately although he was ambulatory. albeit wobbly, when arrested. Police arrested woman in the home. She was transported to a hospital for evaluation.
Holmberg. In a 2022 mug shot from the Benton County jail. Court records show Holmberg was convicted of cocaine possession in 1986 and another felony drug possession in 2006. In 2019 he was convicted of a petty misdemeanor for not wearing his seatbelt in a vehicle.
Heck. Benton County sheriff since 2014.
Drive-by shooting damage blamed on ex-
WINONA, Minn. – A drive-by shooter, armed with BB pellets, fired at a house on the West End and shattered a window and screens. The house occupant tentatively blamed an ex-partner. This was in the 350 block of East Broadway Street.
Tavern’s big-screen television missing
WINONA, Minn. – A 50-inch television was stolen overnight from its perch on am-n enclosed patio at the BrickYard bar in the 550 block on East Third Street. The theft was discovered about 2 p.m. when the new crew arrived for the evening shift. The value was pegged at $3,000.
Officers wounded in drug raid recovering
GLENDORADO, Minn. – Two of the five police officers shot in a central Minnesota drug raid were released from the CentraCare Hospital 20 miles away in St. Cloud after being examined and treated. Combat vests had stopped or slowed the bullets, sources said. The other three officers were at North Memorial Hospital in the Twin Cities and expected to recover. The officers were part of the Elk River-based Sherburne County Drug Task Force that was conducting the raid a at a rural house near Glendorado. It was a multi-agency raid. The names of the wounded officers were not expected to be released because of their undercover assignments. It was known that they were from the Sherburne County Sheriff’s Office in Foley, the Princeton Police Department and the Elk River Police Department. The logistics of the raid remained fuzzy to outsiders. Usually such raids include an armored vehicle and a SWAT team with sharpshooters and negotiators with bullhorns. Typically the raids are in the early morning to maximize an element of surprise. The raids always have a judge’s approval based on evidence from police investigators.
Organized against crime. Altogether 21 violent crime enforcement teams in Minnesiota span 70 counties. They are staffed by 200 investigators mostly on part-time but ongoig assignment from 120 local police agencies.
Drug agencies
The Minnesota Legislature has authorized the regional drug and violent crime enforcement teams with state and federal funding. Among them: The Rochester-based Southeast Minnesota Violent Crime Enforcement Team, which includes Winona County. The goal is to disrupt and destroy illegal drugs, gang activity, and violent crimes.
Drug databank
In 2022 the Minnesota regional enforcement teams reported:
> Drug arrests: 2,289.
> Non-drug arrests: 1,030.
> Cocaine arrests: 207.
> Heroin arrests: 155.
> Meth arrests: 1,426.
> Synthetic narcotics arrests: 106.
> Prescription drug arrests: 260.
> Children removed in drug arrests: 303.
> Guns seized: 1.086.
> Fentanyl pills seized: 211,172.
> Fentanyl powder seized: 16,603 grams.
Hormel workers OK major wages upgrade
AUSTIN, Minn. – Employees of Austin-based Hormel Foods voted to accept a new four-year contract that is the strongest labor deal in the meat-packing industry. The contract hikes wages $3 to $6 per hour, doubles bereavement leave, protects healthcare coverage, and increases pensions. The contract was negotiated after the United Food and Commercial Workers union had threatened to strike. The earlier contract had expired September 10.
Earlier: Hormel, union reach tentative accord
Verbatim
Hormel, in a corporate statement: : “We are pleased that we have reached a new, four-year agreement with the unions representing our team members. We are proud to continuously invest in our people in recognition of the work they do to put the safe, quality food that consumers trust and need on tables across the globe.”
Verbatim
Mark Perrone, union president: “Our members voted today to ratify a contract that includes the largest wage increase in the company’s history. In addition to gaining hourly wage increases of $3-$6 an hour, the new contract nearly doubles bereavement leave, protects healthcare coverage, and increases both pension and 401k benefits.”
Drug raid: Cops find baggies with drugs all over
WINONA, Minn. – A Winona woman with a house full of cocaine, meth and $2,000 cash — was arrested in a police raid. Police said the home of Heidi Jo Wenzel, 49, had been under observation for weeks. The raid was about 11:30 a.m. at 1650 West Fifth Street. Police gave this account:
> A team of eight officers surrounded the single-story house and knocked several times, then shouted for someone to answer. There a no response.
> An officer spotted Wenzel getting up from a chair in the garage and runnng evasively, he said, to the kitchen.
> Meanwhile, another officer used a battering ram to barge through the front door.
> Wenzel, by now rushing to a rear bedroom, was ordered to stop. She did. She was arrested and charged with illegal possession of drugs.
Police said two men were also in t the house. Nether was arrested. Police said their investigation was ongoing.
Confiscated
> Garage: A purse containing baggies of 22.5 grams of suspected cocaine and meth and $2,000 cash.
> In a shoe box: Baggies with a total of 8.5 grams of suspected cocaine and meth.
> In basement: 32 gams of suspected meth.
> In a bedroom: 88 grams of suspected meth.
Multi-agency
The raid was coordinated through the Southeast Minnesota Violent Crime Enforcement Team with eight officers from the Winona police and sheriff’s departments and deputies from Fillmore and Houston counties.
Wenzel: Her house on Far West End under surveillance for weeks.
Suspect in police shooting felled by non-lethal round
GLENDORADO, Minn. – A police sharpshooter fired a non-lethal round and downed man at a rural house where five other officers had been shot and wounded about 8 a.m. After the man fell, police rushed him with a K-9 aide, ushered him to stretcher, and loaded him on a med-evac helicopter. The man appeared from a distance to recover quickly from the non-lethal shot and was on his feet, albeit wobbly. This was a little before 12 noon.. Whether he was the person who shot the five officers was not clear immediately. Meanwhile, the officers who had been shot were recovering at hospitals in St. Cloud and Robbinsdale. It was thought the shootings occurred in a multi-agency search-warrant raid on either the house or a large garage-like metal building on the property. This was near the crossroads of 190th Avenue Northeast and Glendorado Road Northeast – about 12 miles southeast of the county seat of Foley. Benton County Sheriff Troy Beck said early in the confrontation that there was no danger to the general public but to avoid the area.
Earlier: Five officers down in shooting in central Minnesota
Pastor accused of exploiting therapy role
SPARTA, Wis. – A pastor at a storefront church, Travis Becknell, 46, was charged with fondling a woman parishioner without consent. The woman said the assault was in January 2021. She said she went to police after hearing of Becknell with other women. She provided police with hundreds of text messages, some of them sexual. Becknell is the founder of Berean Way Church in Sparta, which formerly was known as the New Hope Fellowship. To police, according to the criminal complaint, Becknell explained that somebody was trying to to “take down the church” and telling tales.
Becknell: The charge: Felony sexual exploitation by therapist.
Perverse vandalism at Sinclair Park playground
WINONA, Minn. – Vandals messed up playground equipment overnight with obscene grafitti at Sinclair Park on East Broadway Street. The vandalism was discovered first thing in the morning by Sharon Forst, principal of St. Martin’s school across the street. She called police. The scrawled and smeared grafitti was hard to decipher but clear were the words “kitty” and “fuck.” There was also a happy face. The Parks Department was notified to send a clean-up crew.
Dino. Sinclair Park is famous locally among kids for its purple dinosaur.
Nursing home probe finds maltreatment, negligence
ROCHESTER, Minn. – A Rochester nursing home, Waters on Mayowood, has been charged by a state investigator with maltreatment of a dementia patient. The patient had fallen in her bathroom and, despite cries for help, was ignored for 10 hours, the investigator said. When an aide finally responded, the woman was in a pool of blood with head trauma, neck and rib fractures, and arm and leg bruises. She was hospitalized and died a month later. The investigator, from the state Health Department, concluded that the woman’s emergency call button was inoperable. Also, according to the report, Mayowood later found seven other patinents’ call buttons were broken and didn’t fix them promptly. Maywood disagreed with some assertions from the investigator: “The Waters was not aware of any potential malfunction of the call pendant. Immediately following the incident, The Waters tested all resident pendants to ensure proper functioning.”
Five officers down in shooting in central Minnesota
GLENDORADO, Minn. – Five police officers were shot and wounded in this rural area northeast of St. Cloud. Three officers were evacuated to a St. Cloud hospital 20 miles away and two to a hospital in the Minneapolis suburb of Robbinsdale 60 miles away. First reports were that the officers’ injuries were non-life-threatening. Details on the shooting were scant. A police scanner channel about 7 a.m. picked up the sound of gunfire followed by a message: “Officer down.” Benton County Sheriff Troy Heck called it a ‘critical incident.” Armored police vehicles and officers from many police agencies converged at a quickly assembled command center about a mile from where it was thought the shooting occurred. The site was a rural house and a cluttered yard with a large pole barn.
R.I.P.: Lyle Bremmer
WINONA, Minn. – Thomas Jon Flak, 60, of Winona, who worked at Davey Tree Service, died at home. He also held jobs at Asplundh Tree Service, Reeds Tree Service, Walchak Concrete, and TRW. He enjoyed deer and duck hunting and trapping.
Details: Hoff Funeral Home
1963-2023
R.I.P.: Lois Czaplewski
WINONA, Minn. — Lois E. Czaplewski, 96, of Winona, died at the Winona hospital. She attended country schools in the Houston and Money Creek area before moving to Winona and attending Winona High School. She was retired from Knitcraft.
Details: Hoff Funeral Home
1927-2023
Ukrainian refugee author to speak at WSU
WINONA, Minn. – Author Lev Golinkin, whose memoir fleeing Soviet Ukraine in the 1990s is on many Winona State reading lists as the university’s 2013 Common Book, will discuss the book in a panel on Wednesday. Time: 3 p.m. in the science building with a keynote address, in the science auditorium, at 7 p.m. Both are free. Golinkin will focus on immigrant and refugee experiences, said Andrew Higl, director of the Common Book program. Golinkin’s book, “A Backpack, A Bear and Eight Crates of Vodka,” traces his Jewish family fleeing persecution. The Golinkin family, when he was 9, crossed the Soviet border out of Ukraine to Austria with only 10 suitcases, $600, and the vague promise of help awaiting in Vienna. At Winona State, the Common Book program is designed to give students across the curriculum a singular bonding and identifying experience.
Golinkin. The book, published in 2014 by Doubleday, is $24 hard cover, $18 paper. 120 pages.
State offers new grants to extend broadband reach
SY=T. PAUL, Minn. – The state economic development agency is releasing $50 million to extend high-speed broadband internet to more homes and businesses. Individual grants can be as much as $10 million and cover up to 75% of a project’s cost. Application details. Matt Varilek, state commissioner for economic development, said: “Broadband is an absolute necessity for Minnesotans looking to connect online with employers, customers, schools, doctors, government services, social networks – frankly, anything at all.” Under a new round of grants, $30 million will be through the agency’s flagship border-to-border program and $20 million through the new low population density program for areas with particularly low population densities and high broadband deployment costs.
Arrests follow wreck; also a weapons charge
WINONA, Minn. – A woman whose car rolled onto its roof in a ditch on County Road 17 up Pleasant Valley was booked for driving drunk and also for having a loaded pistol in the glove compartment. Arrested was Erica Renee Kish, 29, of Winona. Her blood alcohol tested as 0.22% — almost triple the legal definition of impairment. She suffered minor injuries in the rollover but was cleared by an ambulance crew to be taken to jail. When deputies arrived at the scene, a male acquaintance had just showed up after Kish called him for help. The acquaintance, Andrew Donald Heintz, 30, had arrived driving his own car by the time police arrived. He too appeared drunk and was also arrested. Meanwhile, police discovered a loaded handgun uncased in Kish’s glove compartment – even though she didn’t have a permit to carry a weapon. At the jailhouse Heintz tested for 0.14% blood-alcohol. Both had failed balance and other field sobriety tests at the scene.
Kish. What was handgun doing in her car? No permit to carry.
College scores
Volleyball (women): UW-River Falls 3, UW-LaCrosse 1
Minnesota prep
Soccer (boys): Rochester Mayo Spartans 3, Lakeville South Cougars 1
Soccer (girls): Winona Cotter Ramblers 2, Lake City Tigers 1
Intruder tased, tackled, cuffed after break-in
WINONA, Minn. – Police tackled and arrested a fleeing man after a chase that ended a long day of violence and threats that began on the East Side. Arrested wasRobert James Cerney, 43, of Winona. He had been tased twice by police as he fled, but, unaffected, he kept running. Officers tackled and cuffed him. This was about 7:30 p.m. in the 1350 block of West Fourth Street. Police gave this account of a series of events that continued 4-1/2 hours:
> Police received a frantic call from a man about a break-in at his mother’s house in the 650 block of East Wabasha Street. This was about 2:55 p.m. The son was elsewhere but had received a doorbell alert on his smartphone that showed his mother’s former boyfriend was trying to get in despite a court order to stay away. The son then heard a window being smashed and his mother screaming.
> Police arrived. Through a bedroom window the woman confirmed that Cerney was in the house and she feared for her safety. Police got her out of the house to a safe place.
> Officers told Cerney from outside to surrender. “You’re going to have to kill me,” he responded. Police had been in a 12-hour stand-off with Cerney in 2021 and didn’t want to go that route again. They decided to leave the scene, knowing that no one else was in the house and in danger.
> Meanwhile, sheriff’s deputies had been called to help. They established a perimeter around the house.
> Police were tipped about 7:15 that Cerney had left the house and probably was heading across town to a residence on the 1350 block of West Fourth Street.
> Police intercepted Cerney as he was arriving on a bicycle. He threw the bike down and started to flee but first punched one officer in the shoulder, another in the face.
> Officers tased Cerny twice with a stun gun as he ran but to no effect, probably because he was wearihg a heavy jacket that blocked he electrical charge. Officers tackled and cuffed hm. He continued resisting and issued a slew of epithets. Among them: “I’m going to shoot you with a pistol, you pieces of shit.”
> As Cerney was being booked, a jailer opened his wallet and found a trace of meth.
Cerney. Caught after break-in, pedaling a bicycle across town.
Injuries
Cerney had hand injuries when arrested, apparently from breaking the window at the East Wabasha Street address. An ambulance crew determined the cuts were superficial and applied gauze. Two officers who made the arrest suffered injuries they regarded as minor and didn’t seek medical attention.
Charges
> Domestic assault.
> Threatening violence without regard to injuries.
> Introducing contraband in jail.
> Trespassing despite a no-contact court order.
> Physically assaulting police officers.
> Obstructing the legal process.
> Fleeing police.
> Burglary.
> Damaging property.
> Possessing drugs.
I-90 collision kills Arcadia driver
DRESBACH, Minn. – A Wisconsin driver was killed when his pickup truck and an 18-wheeler collided in the complex Interstate 90 interchange near Dresbach. Dead, apparently on impact, was Donald Joseph Suchla, 87, of Arcadia. The accident was about 7:50 p.m. Suchla was driving the wrong way on the divided highway, the State Patrol said. Officers said that he was belted and that his airbag deployed. The trucker, Mark Peter Crom, 67, of Albert Les, was unhurt. He was headed east and about to cross the MississippiRiver bridge into Wisconsin. Road conditions: Dry.
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