The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) is investigating the police shooting of a motorist after he led law enforcement authorities on a chase through Austin, Minn., late Wednesday.
Just after 8 p.m., two Austin police officers and a Mower County sheriff's deputy responded to a 911 call about an erratic male driver on the city's east side.
The driver took off when officers spotted the suspect's vehicle in the 1900 block of Oakland Avenue E. and led officers on a pursuit with speeds reaching 70 miles per hour at times, said Jill Oliveira, a spokeswoman with the BCA.
About three minutes into the pursuit, the man stopped near the intersection of 19th Street and 5th Avenue NE., authorities said. He then put his vehicle into reverse and rammed an Austin police officer's squad car that had pulled behind the suspect's vehicle. That officer fired his gun and hit the man, Oliveira said.
The motorist tried to drive off, but he was stopped a block away by a sheriff's deputy's maneuver, Oliveira said.
The wounded driver, whose name has not been released, was taken to a clinic in Austin and later transferred to St. Marys Hospital in Rochester. He was being treated Thursday for noncritical injuries, the BCA said.
No officers were injured, but the officer who shot the suspect has been placed on administrative leave, Oliveira said. His name has not been released.
Investigators spent Thursday collecting evidence at the scene, talking to witnesses and reviewing footage from the squads' dashcams.
