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GRAND FORKS, N.D. -- A Grand Forks jail inmate has been charged after video captured him bending parts of two cell doors so they wouldn't lock, according to court documents. Billy Ray Hackler, 58, was charged Thursday in Grand Forks District Court with criminal mischief, a Class A misdemeanor. He's been in court on other charges recently, including for leading police on a chase and for abandoning more than two dozen cats in his Grand Forks apartment.
ST. PAUL -- Gov. Mark Dayton announced Friday the appointment of Amy Doll of Morris as district court judge in Minnesota’s Eighth Judicial District. The counties in the judicial district are Big Stone, Chippewa, Grant, Kandiyohi, Lac Qui Parle, Meeker, Pope, Renville, Stevens, Swift, Traverse, Wilkin, and Yellow Medicine Counties. Doll is replacing the Judge Gerald Siebel and will be chambered at Elbow Lake in Grant County.
Jim Carlson is making his pitch to the nation's highest court. As expected, attorneys for the imprisoned former owner of the Last Place on Earth head shop in downtown Duluth have filed a petition seeking to have the U.S. Supreme Court hear the case. The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in January denied Carlson's bid to overturn his 51 federal convictions and 17½-year prison sentence stemming from a 2013 trial that was perhaps the most significant synthetic-drug prosecution in the country.
THIEF RIVER FALLS—A 38-year-old man was sentenced Monday to seven years in prison for robbing a Thief River Falls gas station with a machete last summer. Adrian Daniel Staples, Thief River Falls, was charged in Pennington County District Court with aggravated robbery and felon in possession of a firearm, both felonies, last July. He was sentenced to 84 months in prison for aggravated robbery, with credit for 258 days served. The felon in possession of a firearm charge was dismissed.
CALLAWAY, Minn. -- The evacuation of the town of Callaway was lifted as of 10 a.m. Friday. Becker County Sheriff Todd Glander says the threat to the public has passed; residents will be allowed back into their homes and all roads will be open.
SUNBURG, Minn. -- A bank robbery at the Lake Region Bank in Sunburg in west-central Minnesota was reported late Thursday morning. According to an initial report from the Kandiyohi County Sheriff's Office, the robbery was first reported at 11:53 a.m. at the bank at 219 Front St., about 20 miles northwest of Willmar, Minn. According to the report, the single alleged robber was wearing a mask and was driving a blue van. Numerous law enforcement officers responded to the scene.
MOORHEAD—A 38-year-old man who suffered an apparent heroin overdose Wednesday evening, March 23, survived the ordeal after he was given the overdose reversal drug Narcan by paramedics. The incident was reported about 11:30 p.m. at a residence in south Moorhead, said Moorhead police Lt. Tory Jacobson. He said the victim collapsed and stopped breathing due to a suspected overdose of heroin and his life was likely saved after F-M Ambulance paramedics administered Narcan. The man was taken to Sanford Medical Center in Fargo.
A 29-year-old Bemidji man faces criminal vehicular homicide charges after allegedly being drunk and behind the wheel of a pickup truck that rolled over on state Highway 65 in Itasca County last week, killing a friend. Authorities allege that Christopher Smith told a state trooper at the scene of the crash that the man who later died from his injuries — Mark Wirtjes, 56, of Bovey, who was thrown from the truck — was the driver. But another passenger and other evidence point to Smith as the one who was driving, according to a criminal complaint.
ST. PAUL -- The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission on Wednesday formally denied Minnesota Power the authority to raise homeowner and business electric rates in order to lower rates for taconite plants and paper mills. The PUC formally filed the order that it had preliminarily made on Feb. 11 after hours of testimony on the issue.
BRAINERD, Minn. -- A jury trial has been scheduled for a Brainerd man who faces six felony counts in a criminal case that began with a dog killing chickens and ended in a short stand-off between the suspect and authorities. The jury trial for Larry Walter Prahm, 63, has been scheduled for 9 a.m. July 18 in front of Judge Kristine DeMay in Crow Wing County District Court. On Feb. 16, Prahm plead not guilty to all six felony counts and to two gross misdemeanor counts, court records stated.