When the suspect fired a shotgun at the Ramsey County sheriff’s deputy, he ducked, swerved and survived.

Something was wrong when Ramsey County Sheriff’s Deputy Joe Kill chased a vehicle that wouldn’t stop. He could feel it.

The driver turned off the vehicle’s lights and continued to turn left onto the streets of St. Paul, in a square. Kill felt like they were trying to lure him into coming closer to the vehicle, so he started backing up.

When he followed them onto the next street, about 30 feet behind, Kill saw that the front passenger was halfway out the window and sitting on the sill. He pointed a beige rifle at the deputy. Then he started shooting.

The deputy ducked, swerved with the team to get out of the line of fire and felt pain just below his shoulder. He knew he had been hit, but he wasn’t immediately sure if it was by a rifle bullet, shrapnel or something.

“Six inches higher and the bullet would have gone through the windshield and hit him directly,” Sheriff Bob Fletcher recently told the Ramsey County Board of Commissioners.

It was shrapnel that struck Kill and caused deep tissue bruising. Kill has returned to work, although he is still seeing a physical therapist nearly three months after his injuries.

Kill faced the experience of death less than two weeks after a man armed with a rifle fired more than 100 rounds at public safety officers, fatally wounding Burnsville officers Matthew Ruge and Paul Elmstrand , as well as Burnsville firefighter/paramedic Adam Finseth.

Assaults on law enforcement in Minnesota have increased since 2020, according to state data.

On average, 388 police officers were assaulted each year in the decade leading up to 2019. There were an average of 1,065 police officers assaulted each year between 2020 and last year, according to statistics from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Most attacks resulted in minor or no injuries.

When the Ramsey County Council recognized the sheriff’s office earlier this month during National Police Week, a time to commemorate fallen officers, Fletcher told them he had seen the work become more perilous during his nearly 47 years in law enforcement.

“The weapons, the assault rifles, the type of weapons that are out there make this job much more dangerous and I will say that the attitude towards the police has of course in some cases deteriorated over the years,” said Fletcher. “I think we are making progress. I think we have reestablished some relationships and I see signs of improvement.

Veteran and local officer becomes deputy

Joe Kill, 40, has public service in his blood. His grandfather, John Kill, served in the United States Navy during World War II.

When John Kill returned to St. Paul, he became a firefighter. He was a captain in 1972 when he collapsed and died while fighting a fire at Carroll Avenue and Mackubin Street.

Joe Kill joined the Minnesota National Guard and served as a military police officer from 2011 to 2018. He was deployed to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he worked in the detention camp.

In Minnesota, he worked as a federal security guard before becoming a community service officer and then a police officer in White Bear Lake, where he grew up.

He became a Ramsey County sheriff’s deputy about three years ago when the sheriff’s office created its Carjacking and Auto Theft Team (CAT). Kill was one of the lead investigators on the team, tasked with searching for suspects and searching for stolen and hijacked vehicles. Kill was on patrol in that role March 1 when a St. Paul officer attempted to stop a vehicle, but the driver continued.

“It immediately came to my mind, and then I tried to stop it,” Kill said. He was near the St. Paul Police Department’s Eastern District station when the vehicle sped away from him, heading toward the Dayton’s Bluff area.

Related Articles

The Honda ran a red light. Kill, leading an unmarked squad, activated his emergency lights and sirens. The driver continued, but did not go more than 30 mph and turned off the Honda’s headlights.

Beyond the fact that the driver kept turning left, it wasn’t a normal pursuit because youths fleeing the CAT team typically drive too fast, Kill said.

When the rifle fire began at Euclid and Forest streets, Kill said the bullets sounded like a ball hammer hitting his team. The Honda left the scene.

There were bullet fragments at Kill’s feet – what was left of the bullets passing through the team’s hood, the engine and the panel between the engine and the passenger compartment.

“The term ‘shrapnel’ is really misrepresented,” Fletcher said. “What hit him was a falling ball.”

“Absolutely helpless”

It was a Friday evening and Fletcher was live-streaming his “Live on Patrol,” a program of his patrols that attracts large numbers of viewers on Facebook and YouTube, when Kill announced over the radio that shots had been fired and that he had been hit by something. The sheriff and other law enforcement, already on their way to the area to support Kill, rushed to him.

Paramedics checked Kill at the scene, then Kill’s boss drove him to the regional hospital, where he took X-rays and was released.

Kill had been hit in the top of his body armor and “the impact went through the side of my body,” Kill said. A specialist determined that his ribs had been displaced. He has numbness in his right arm and has not been able to turn his neck to the right for a while.

He undergoes physical therapy three times a week for his shoulder injury.

Kill’s wife, Molly Grandner, was out of state and Kill was supposed to join them the next day for a vacation with their 1-year-old daughter and children from previous relationships.

Grandner’s mother, who was with her, woke up to a phone call saying Kill had been injured, but was OK and at the regional hospital. She broke the news to Grandner, who is also a Ramsey County sheriff’s deputy who investigates violent crimes.

Grandner felt “absolutely helpless” since she was far away: “No plane could have gotten me there fast enough. I could not do anything. I had to rely on our law enforcement team and trust that he would be in good hands.

Attempted murder charges

Less than two weeks later, the Ramsey County Prosecutor’s Office charged Trevion Figgs, 20, with attempted murder. He told investigators he did not try to kill anyone.

“Figgs asked investigators what they wanted, and they told him they wanted to know why this happened – why it was worth shooting an assault rifle at the deputy during a traffic stop,” according to the criminal complaint. “Figgs said, ‘Why?’ If you’re going to put me in prison for the rest of my life anyway…’ Figgs then said he wasn’t going to admit to something he didn’t do.

After the shooting incident, the Ramsey County Prosecutor’s Office also charged Figgs with attempted murder in a June 26 shooting in the Payne-Phalen area of ​​St. Paul. A man, then 19, was shot in the back while walking. Police collected 27 shell casings in the area.

A friend of the victim allegedly posted “negative comments on social media” about Marleisha Davenport, a 15-year-old from South St. Paul who was fatally shot in Minneapolis on May 18, 2023. The 19-year-old was shot by someone passing in a vehicle, from which shouts of “Long live Marleisha” were heard, the complaint states.

Figgs declined an interview request from Pioneer Press and his attorney said he had no comment at this time.

Prosecutors also charged a 16-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy, the alleged driver, with attempted murder in the case involving the deputy. The county attorney’s office is seeking to have their cases transferred from juvenile court to adult court.

Physical and mental recovery

Kill was off work for about a month to recover physically and also begin to understand what had happened.

Fletcher assigned him to a unit the sheriff’s office recently created — he’s now an acting sergeant on a team investigating nonfatal shootings. The sheriff said he didn’t want to put Kill back in the CAT unit right away, so he wouldn’t chase vehicles at night and continually relive the memories of what happened, although Kill can choose to return at some point.

He’s good at his job, Fletcher said. Kill recently testified in federal court in an Arden Hills carjacking case he investigated — a 61-year-old woman was robbed of her vehicle at gunpoint and a then-56-year-old man was charged. A jury found the man guilty Thursday.

Kill and Grandner said their parents worried about them and Kill’s eldest child, 18, was keenly aware of his job.

Kill believes that attacks on law enforcement officers have increased because “people think they don’t have to listen to us or they think there are no rules and the consequences are weak.”

Before Kill was injured, Grandner had thought about the dangers of Kill’s job on Team CAT.

“They’re going after these kids who have no respect for the public,” she said. “All the kids have guns on them or in the car. Honestly, it was a matter of time and I prayed that when that day came, Joe would be ready. And thank goodness he was.

Related Articles