Burnsville Man Charged with Assaulting Sheriff's Deputy

A Burnsville man has been charged with assaulting a peace officer after police say he fought with them and landed a punch on a Dakota County deputy sheriff’s face last week.

Christopher Shane Sullivan, 40, is charged with felony fourth-degree assault, which carries a maximum penalty of two years in prison and a $4,000 fine; and disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.

According to the criminal complaint, officers from the Hastings Police Department were called to a hardware store in Hastings just after 1 a.m. June 6 on a report of a fight.

When they arrived, they found a bloodied Sullivan, who appeared agitated, according to the complaint. Officers ordered him to stop. He ignored them and continued walking. When police told him again to stop, he approached an officer in a threatening manner, with his jaw clenched and his hands in fists, the complaint says.

Sullivan began to yell unintelligibly at the officer, who drew his stun gun and ordered Sullivan to stand near his squad car. Sullivan told the officer he had been in a fight, but he didn’t know with whom. He appeared to be intoxicated, and his mood and demeanor veered from one extreme to the other, according to the complaint.

Sullivan’s manner ranged from calm to very aggressive, and he continued to make statements that were hard to follow or “just plain unintelligible,” according to the complaint. At one point, he began mumbling to himself and walking in circles. When police ordered him to sit on the ground and relax, he sat down and began to cry, then stood up, started to scream and ran toward a nearby motel, the complaint says.

The officer chased Sullivan and found him at the motel’s front desk, still agitated, ignoring instructions and appearing to want to fight the officer, according to the complaint. The officer put him in the squad car, and one of Sullivan’s friends offered to take him back to his motel room.

However, before officers left, the friend told them he couldn’t control Sullivan and that he was afraid of him. He said Sullivan had left the motel room and was running, yelling and swearing up and down the stairs.

Police arrested Sullivan, planning to take him to detox. On the way, he began hitting and kicking the windows and cage of the squad car, using his seat belt to hit the cage so that the officer feared that it would detach from the car.

Officers decided to take Sullivan to the Dakota County Jail instead of detox. As they were taking him out of the squad car, he began swinging his fists, hitting a sheriff’s deputy in the face and leaving a red mark. He continued trying to hit and kick jail staff until officers used pepper spray on him.

Sullivan is free on his promise to make all future court appearances. An omnibus hearing in his case is scheduled Sept. 17 in Dakota County District Court.