A man armed with a knife took a hostage in the street of an Iron Range city and was fatally shot in the head by a local police officer, authorities said.
The incident unfolded shortly after 5 p.m. Tuesday in Virginia, Minn., and started as a report of "suspicious activity" near Holy Spirit Catholic Church in the 300 block of 2nd Street S., where a man ordered a woman out of her vehicle, according the Minnesota Department of Public Safety.
The man then entered the vehicle but later got out and grabbed a male bystander on the sidewalk.
Virginia police officers and St. Louis County sheriff's deputies responded and soon afterward the suspect had a knife and was "running at us," an officer on the scene reported to dispatch.
Moments later, an officer reported that "we got a hostage situation," the emergency dispatch audio revealed. "Get a rifle out here. ... He's got a male hostage."
Shots were fired, and an officer was heard telling dispatch that the suspect has a "gunshot wound to the head. ... Labored breathing, unresponsive."
The subject was taken by ambulance to Essentia Health-Virginia Hospital and declared dead, according to the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA), which is heading the investigation. The man was later identified as 41-year-old J Scot Alan Widmark, of Virginia. An autopsy at the Midwest Medical Examiner's Office determined that Widmark died of a gunshot wound.
Crime scene personnel recovered a knife at the scene of the shooting, the BCA said.
