Winona, Minnesota, is an idyllic little city on the banks of the Mississippi river, home to a couple of well-known national companies like Fastenal Industrial Supplies and Watkins Spice Company.
And I can't stress the idyllic part enough. Just look at this place:
But like a lot of America, things are not all lefse and krumkake if you know what I mean.
Just this week, the whole town was thrown into lockdown because of an active shooter. Here's the alert that went out to everyone's phones:
Or maybe it was actually a storm warning:
Actually, it was just a disagreement at a shop that got out of hand.
It turns out that this goofy looking guy wasn't happy with his service at a local business and assaulted an employee with a "sharp" object.
The employee went to the hospital with minor injuries, and the angry customer fled the scene.
The police put out a notice that they were searching for the assailant, identified as Stig Ure, in a specific area of the city with a shelter-in-place order for that small area, and things spun out of control from there.
The weather service apparently decided it must be a storm if people are being told to take shelter, so they issued a weather alert.
And then the university (as universities are wont to do these days) spun the story into a gun-control nightmare, issuing the city-wide, shelter-in-place order due to an active shooter via their own emergency system.
The Police Department said,
Emergency alerts are sent out by the Winona County Sheriff's Office at the request of law enforcement agencies. During this incident, Winona PD requested a ‘shelter in place', but due to the multiple alert platforms being utilized, several messages went out and caused some confusion. In addition, a different alert platform not utilized by law enforcement mistakenly sent out a message regarding an ‘active shooter.' We apologize for the confusion caused by the emergency alert systems in this case. The Winona Police Department and Winona County Sheriff's Office are working together to identify areas for improvement.
Despite all the insanity, they did end up catching the guy crawling in some bushes, after the shelter in place order had been lifted.
I sure hope residents believe the authorities next time a real storm or, God forbid, an active shooter situation takes place.
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