WEST CONCORD, Minn. – Sheriff Scott Rose has filled in gaps in the sequence of events that led to a police chase Sunday and the suicide of the pursued driver. The chase began in West Concord, population 860, a town in the agricultural flatlands of Mower County 30 miles. northwest of Rochester. The sheriff’s account:
> Police officer David Curtis Myrom, age 40, in the town squad car. was parked on the North End on Highhway56 near the crossroads with County Road 24. This a\was about 7:45 p.m.
> A Cannon Falls man, Adam Michael Lawrence, 48, 30 miles from home, came up behind Myrom’s squad car in a 2005 Ford Explorer and swerved, just missing the side of the squad car.
> The officer turned on his overhead lights to pull the vehicle over.
> Lawrence pulled into the parking lot at a Casey’s convenience store.
> Lawrence drove toward the squad car, “again aggressively.”
> Lawrence stopped briefly, made a U-turn, put the Explorer in reverse, and rammed the squad car, setting off the airbags and injuring the officer.
> Lawrence drove into the Hgway56 and County Road 24 intersection and sped off.
> Mower County officers gave chase north into rural Goodhue County.
> Deputies from neighboring Rice County laid stop sticks in Lawrence’s path, puncturing the right front tire.
> A Dodge County deputy laid a second strip stick, damaging at least one other tire.
> In Cannon Falls Lawrence stopped his Explorer in the Mayo hospital parking lot. The hospital went into lockdown.
> Lawrence shot himself dead as officers approached his disabled Explorer.
West Concord squad car. In formal portrait Also a Ford Explorer.
Next steps
Per protocol in an officer-involved shooting, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension has taken ever investigation. This will include alcohol and controlled-substance checks in an autopsy. There also will be reconstruction of where Lawrence had been.