Two reported dead in collision involving Minnesota state trooper

947348+070514.N.STP_.TrooperCrash copy.jpg — Authorities investigate the scene of a collision Friday, July 4, 2014, involving a Minnesota State Patrol squad car in Cannon Falls, Minn. Two people in another vehicle were killed when their car pulled out of a parking lot and collided with the squad car. The state trooper had serious injuries that were not life-threatening. (Will Ashenmacher/Pioneer Press)

By St. Paul Pioneer Press

July 04, 2014 at 6:30 PM

CANNON FALLS, Minn. -- A state trooper responding to a traffic accident collided with another vehicle, fatally injuring both occupants, on Friday afternoon in Cannon Falls.

The Minnesota State Patrol said the trooper’s squad car hit the other vehicle as it pulled out of a parking lot onto 65th Street at Goodhue County Road 24, on the south end of Cannon Falls.

Both occupants of the 2012 Ford Taurus were killed in the 2:35 p.m. collision, State Patrol Lt. Eric Roeske said at a news conference Friday evening at the Cannon Falls Police Department.

Roeske said they were the car’s 78-year-old driver and 79-year-old passenger. Both were from Cannon Falls, but their names were not released pending notification of relatives.

The trooper, a 28-year veteran of the State Patrol, was flown by helicopter to a Mayo Clinic hospital in Rochester with injuries that were serious but not life threatening.

Roeske declined to identify the trooper at the news conference, but earlier in the day, the State Patrol’s website said Scott R. Reps was being treated for non-life-threatening injuries. An employee of that name works for the state Department of Public Safety as a State Patrol trooper, according to a database of public employees.

Roeske said the Ford Crown Victoria squad car had its lights and sirens activated as the trooper responded to an injury accident involving a collision between a motorcycle and a deer on Minnesota 60.

The Taurus was pulling out of a business parking lot and was T-boned by the squad car.

A second vehicle, a 2009 Jeep Commander, apparently rear-ended the Taurus as it followed it out of the parking lot, but no one in it was injured.

Cannon Falls Police Chief Jeff McCormick said the area where the collision occurred isn’t a problem spot for accidents. The road, along a commercial zone just east of U.S. 52, has a 45-mph speed limit. Authorities declined to estimate the squad car’s speed at the time of the crash.

Cannon Falls is about 35 miles southeast of St. Paul.

The Pioneer Press is a media partner with Forum News Service.

Two reported dead in collision involving Minnesota state trooper

CANNON FALLS, Minn. -- A state trooper responding to a traffic accident collided with another vehicle, fatally injuring both occupants, on Friday afternoon in Cannon Falls. The Minnesota State Patrol said the trooper's squad car hit the other veh...