Jurors have convicted a 22-year-old man of shooting and wounding an Albert Lea, Minn., police officer and others during an eight-hour standoff at his apartment building in November 2020.
Devin M. Weiland was found guilty Monday by a Freeborn County District Court jury of three counts of first-degree attempted murder, including one count of attempted murder of a police officer and three counts of second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon.
Weiland fired more than 80 rounds during the standoff on Nov. 29, 2020, including one that hit officer Kody Needham in the chest, where he was wearing a protective vest. He also shot an apartment complex resident in the arm and a neighbor in the leg as he was driving past on his way to work.
After a week of testimony, jurors deliberated for two and a half hours before reaching their verdicts. Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 19.
Needham, 32, is now an Otter Tail County sheriff's deputy.
According to the charges, Weiland told authorities that he made the initial report of gunfire or fireworks in the neighborhood that first brought the police to his apartment building.
Weiland eventually came out of his apartment and surrendered to the officers who had amassed in the apartment building.
Weiland told police he thought they were going to take his guns. Three rifles and a shotgun were recovered by law enforcement from his apartment.
The case was prosecuted by the state Attorney General's Office at the request of the Freeborn County Attorney's Office.
Since 2019, the Attorney General's Office has prosecuted more than three-dozen cases of serious violent crime in 22 counties and "has not lost a single one of these cases," the office said in a statement announcing Weiland's conviction. John Stiles, a spokesman for Attorney General Keith Ellison, added in response to a question that "10 of the 40 cases are still pending" a resolution. Fifteen have resulted in guilty pleas, two investigations remain active, two were closed with no charges filed and one cannot be disclosed publicly because it involved a juvenile defendant, Stiles said.
"Weiland's attempted murder of a police officer and two innocent bystanders is reprehensible, and the jury's verdict was just and proper," read a statement from Ellison. "We rely on police to step into dangerous situations like this one was and try to resolve them as peacefully as possible, and they deserve our thanks for it."
