This week a man with a gun threatened to shoot people near Laird Stadium on the Carleton Campus. Security were called, who called Northfield Police and the man was apprehended without incident. The weapon turned out to be a replica. But Rice County Sheriff Troy Dunn says it’s one of law enforcement’s worst nightmares. He said, “it’s a matter of seconds to decide if that’s a real gun. If somebody points a gun at you, our officers really don’t have the
time to say let’s see, is that a real gun or a toy gun. We have to do what we have to do to protect ourselves”. He said 
there are people who are using replicas to commit robberies, they look that real. He says some of those replicas have an orange tag but that’s not always visible. He added, “we’ve actually seen guns pink in color (the gun on the right came from the manufacturer this way) , we’ve seen guns that are black with orange that are real guns that unlawful people have painted to make it look like a toy gun and it’s actually the real thing”. Dunn said some of his deputies responded to the call on Monday of the shooter on the campus, “and those are always very scary”. The man was in the Rice County jail but has since been released without charges at this time. Northfield police continue to investigate. If you have information regarding the incident, call their non-emergency phone number. 507-645-4475 (Non-Emergency)
Basil’s expansion takes another step
Basil’s Pizza expansion takes another step forward with direction from the Northfield City Council this week. They met in closed session to discuss the sale of a part of the property at 219 Water Street to allow for an 890 sq. ft. indoor dining expansion. This is the latest in several attempts to expand. C. DeLong had a number of questions for Community Development Director Chris Heineman including financials. He said, “I have personally verified that the cash is on hand to satisfy the completion of the project as proposed”. C. Zweifel moved to direct staff to move forward with the project. It passed 5 to 1 with DeLong the dissenting vote. This will come back to Council after a formal purchase and redevelopment agreement has been drafted.
Distracted driving now biggest reason for crashes
Just a week ago, a motorist driving through the intersection of Hwy 3 and 19 failed to yield to a motorcycle causing the rider to be airlifted to a trauma hospital. It’s the season and with warmer temperatures, you’ll see more motorcycles. At least that’s the hope, that you’ll see them. Rice County Sheriff Troy Dunn added, “and most of these crashes that we see involving motorcycles when there’s multiple vehicles, it’s because people are not paying attention”. Distracted driving has become the biggest reason for crashes. The rider from last Saturday’s accident is recovering. Dunn added that pedestrian deaths, “I think it’s up 150{b5761be34e80a16b6d0e4dabc1869c131a263f96a745c82bebdd3b8a4330bfa9} nationwide from a year ago”. Adding, “A lot of times it’s pedestrians are walking, they’ve got their headphones on or their ear (buds) and they’re just not paying attention and they walk out in front of something”. A Distracted driving enforcement wave starts Monday through April 23rd. Northfield, Faribault and Dundas Police Departments and the Rice County Sheriff’s Office will take part in the extra enforcement along with more than 300 other law enforcement agencies across Minnesota. We’ll hear more from Police Chief Monte Nelson next week and I have much more information on kymn.net from Sgt. Kevin Tussing and the TZD program. Click on the link for statistics and more distracted-pre-enforcement-2017
