on december 8 2021 around 2 35 a.m
douglas county 9-1-1 center received
several 9-1-1 calls regarding a
roll-over crash on i-94 near alexandria
minnesota the crash was near mile
markers 107 or 108 one passerby noted
that a man was now crawling down the
shoulder of the highway multiple
sheriff's deputies responded to the
scene as well as the minnesota state
patrol and noticed good samaritans
trying to keep the crash survivor out of
the freeway and helping provide aid
at the scene they would find a man with
obvious signs of intoxication including
slurred speech poor balance and odor of
alcoholic beverage however unlike any
call before the man in question was the
elected sheriff of the most populous
county in minnesota sheriff hutchinson
commonly called sheriff hutch what
follows in this video is the
documentation of their investigation
that night and over the ensuing days as
their investigation progressed the
sheriff sheriff hutch made multiple
false statements including the
outlandish claim that he had a cabbie a
cab driver driving his squad vehicle at
the time of the crash the investigation
also revealed that the sheriff was not
wearing his seat belt and the squad
car's black box reported a speed of 126
miles per hour in the moments prior to
the crash
in total douglas county deputies and
state troopers obtained more than 100
pieces of evidence as part of their
investigation into the sheriff's
behavior that night including device
forensic data from the black box
indicating how the car was being driven
that night
at the request of the deputies state
patrol took the primary role in this
investigation
after photos were released of the squad
vehicle's condition by journalist
rebecca bannon hennepin county officials
requested an investigation of the
journalist
for alleged trespassing
the investigation came back
unfounded
sheriff hutchinson refused to consent to
the release of body-worn camera footage
preventing its release under minnesota
law
sheriff hutchinson refused to consent to
a pbt and ultimately a search warrant
was obtained for a urine sample
ems personnel found the suv's keys in
the roadway and a deputy suspected
sheriff hutch may have thrown the keys
away so he would not be found in their
possession
the following video audio and photos
were obtained by m safety this channel
via multiple open records requests
this video is divided into different
chapters
first dash cam and emergency response to
the scene next dash cam video at the
scene including the detainment of the
sheriff
photos of the scene
then search warrant photos
then
other evidence obtained include
including the urinalysis results
then the reports the officers submitted
and finally the outcome including
charges disposition and a statement from
a defense attorney after the trial
admitting that state troopers and
deputies conducted an extremely thorough
investigation
and might even arrest mother teresa if
they thought she was driving drunk
the first police squad will arrive on
scene in 10 seconds watch and see if you
can spot signs
of sheriff hutches
inebriation
and lack of balance or other signs of
intoxication
[Applause]
let me know how many people we have
[Applause]
still trying to get some more
information on injuries and number of
patients
[Applause]
[Applause]
status
[Applause]
there we go
[Applause]
vegas
so
[Applause]
you're not hurt though you said sir no
okay now
10.
how did you get on the road over there
north dakota 285 adam volume yellow
should be our callers down in uh
we're opening alex for the
part for uh
my conference and then i just okay what
kind of conference you're trying to do
in a row
we're at the chicago park
conference no okay who was driving
because i'm concerned 211 210 if you
don't need me right up there i'm gonna
get back a little bit and give us some
room for traffic
suv of some sort i don't know what kind
of car it is
well i wouldn't be driving yeah 211 even
back a little bit there was a squirrely
semi come through so because i can't
find anybody else around here who was
driving i i'm from infant so you're from
hennepin yeah i don't know i
took a cab from some
person and so were you were you a
passenger then yeah i know you're
driving okay yeah so there is somebody
else out here then
well what kind of car is out here what
is that right there okay like like i
said dave i don't know what kind of car
it is it's too smashed up right now but
i'm concerned because i don't see
anybody else inside and you're telling
me you weren't driving no
no absolutely not okay so there is still
somebody else out here that i should be
looking for
all right
are you on where are we right now we're
near alexandria
well i got the ambulance and route
they're just about here okay we're going
to have them check out make sure you're
i'm sure you're okay yeah i don't have
any other weapons out here or anything
like that no no okay
[Music]
hi dave why don't we get you out onto
the
stretcher no i don't do that no we got
to get you checked out okay i'm good
that's why i heard that state patrol has
contacted me nor are they having someone
come out
all right
10-4 62
they
good all right
this is black box data obtained from
sheriff hutch's
unmarked police squad
shows 126.2 miles per hour 3.4 seconds
before the crash 1.6 seconds before the
crash is when he started braking at 83
miles per hour massive torque inputs on
this page
with a steering wheel column turned at
140 degrees almost 139 degrees
the sheriff made statements that he
tried to call a cab and that the cab
driver was driving his squad car at the
time of the crash this turned out to be
a very false statement and he later
admitted that he was driving and was
drunk at the time but it was
because he made the claim it was
thoroughly investigated by detectives
here's the results of his
of his urine sample a point
a 0.134 and that was several hours that
was after 5 a.m on the day of the crash
here are the charges the original
citation with misdemeanor charges
associated with the event ems personnel
found the keys in a lane of traffic and
one deputy surmised that
he may have thrown the keys so that the
key he wouldn't be found in possession
of the keys we received tons and tons of
photos we've narrowed it down to just
like the top 20 or 40 photos and we'll
show them to you quickly here
with the idea that if you find something
interesting you can just rewind a bit or
slow it down
if you're looking at these photos
like me
it's absolutely incredible this is a
survivable crash probably i mean of
course engineering plays a role it looks
like he
but probably a fair amount of luck
because the only compartment that was
still
not completely penetrated was the the
driver portion of this vehicle
if you look closely at some point in
these photos there's a gun on the ground
a pistol
if you look closely at these photos you
will see that he did go all the way
across and hit the median cable barrier
which prevented him from going into
those oncoming lanes of traffic
i like this photo with the reflection it
shows a little bit of you know there's
always someone behind the badge or
behind you know a lot of work went into
goes into each
crash investigation each dui
investigation and there's always a fair
amount of work behind the scenes and
it's easy to forget that there's a human
behind all this work as part of
conducting a thorough investigation
police returned in the morning to take
daytime photos of the scene we set up
the video here 40x speed i believe this
is douglas county that came back out to
do some additional evidence collection
photos etc
these are search warrant photos so in
addition for getting a warrant for the
blood or urine draw a warrant was also
sought and approved by a judge to get
additional photos of the squad and
as part of that search warrant you'd be
able to maybe go into the squad and get
some closer photos and get the
patrol rifle out of the vehicle it is a
unmarked squad you can see that there's
a light bar inside the vehicle i think
it has a siren mount and it had a duty
rifle and patrol rifle inside
after the conviction of sheriff
hutchinson
sheriff hutch's own defense attorney
said the state patrol's investigation
was thorough and unforgiving and that
they would even arrest mother teresa if
they thought she was a drunk driver
here's the charging documents along with
the plea agreement and the conditions of
release so as part of the plea agreement
three of the charges were dropped and he
was convicted on the dui he is currently
an elected sheriff and who's under
probation
multiple county commissioners have
called for his resignation and he faces
several opponents in the 2022 election