Man wielding knife in Walker is charged in attack on police officer who shot him

WALKER, Minn. - The man arrested after wielding a knife over the weekend, slashing tires and threatening to kill an officer who shot him in the arm, appeared in court Monday.

Dillon Ray Kloehn, 31 of Laporte, Minn., was arraigned on five criminal charges: first-degree assault/use of deadly force against an officer, two counts of second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon, one count of attempted first-degree aggravated robbery and misdemeanor fleeing police. He was booked into the Itasca County jail Friday night after being treated at a Bemidji hospital.

Kloehn is charged in Cass County District Court, where he appeared remotely Monday and Judge Christopher Strandlie set his bail at $400,000. Kloehn has an extensive, violent criminal history in Minnesota.

Charges say Kloehn threatened to stab officer Kent Cleveland, who repeatedly asked Kloehn to drop his knife before shooting him. Cleveland, a nearly 40-year police veteran, is on standard leave.

Cleveland followed Kloehn to the Dollar General around 6:45 p.m. after a 911 caller reported a man walking around town in boxers with a knife.

A Dollar General employee told officers that Kloehn tried to jump over the counter at her with the knife, charges said.

Surveillance footage showed him starting to reach over the counter with a knife, and the cashier “backed up and put her hands up in the air as if she was being robbed,” the charges said, adding that he demanded the cashier give him cigarettes.

In the parking lot, Kloehn rushed toward Cleveland, threatening to kill him when Cleveland fired one round into the arm holding the knife, the charges said.

One witness, Dick Johnson of nearby Benedict, said Cleveland gave Kloehn many chances to put down the knife.

“That cop knew what he’s doing,” Johnson said. “He purposely aimed down, and he shot the kid right in the arm. The kid went down, got right back up, ran across the road, still carrying the knife.”

The knife recovered at the scene was 8 inches long .

Kloehn next appears in court Aug. 25. A public defender was not yet assigned to his case, and family members did not respond to requests for comment.

Kloehn has been convicted four times of domestic assault in the past decade, and in 2016 he was convicted of escaping custody. His criminal record includes disorderly conduct, theft, burglary, fleeing police and drug possession.

He was on intensive supervised release until September for a domestic assault conviction last year.

In June, he posted disturbing photos on Facebook showing his body covered in burn marks. “I’m not messing around I need to get home so I can see my family before I really do something!” he wrote.

Kloehn grew up in Laporte, which is 12 miles west of Walker, a quiet tourist town in northern Minnesota on the shores of Leech Lake.

On Friday night, a bachelorette party from rural North Dakota had just arrived to town for the weekend and stopped by the Dollar General to get supplies to paint wine glasses in their hotel room. That’s when they saw the officer confronting Kloehn at gunpoint.