OUT OF CONTROL

Minnesota Mask Dispute Ends in Hammer Attack, ‘Slow Speed’ Chase

A 61-year-old Minnesota man is accused of using a piece of lumber to attack a Menards employee before striking a police officer in the head with a hammer.

A Minnesota man has been arrested after allegedly unleashing a string of attacks at a local Menards on Wednesday during a dispute over the store’s COVID-19 mask policy. Police were dispatched to the store in response to the man allegedly attacking a store employee with a piece of lumber after being asked to don a protective mask in keeping with store policy, the Star Tribune reports. The man, identified only as a 61-year-old, had already left the store by the time officers arrived but was soon spotted in the parking lot, at which point he is said to have led police on a “slow speed pursuit.” When he stopped his car, an officer approached and tried to talk to him through the driver’s window, only to become trapped, hanging from the window, when the suspect suddenly drove off “at a high rate of speed,” according to Hutchinson police. As the officer was clinging to the window, the suspect also allegedly struck him in the head with a hammer. The officer was hospitalized and in stable condition as of late Wednesday.