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Crime, Law and Justice
MPR News Staff

BCA IDs officer who shot man in northwest Minnesota

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The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension on Thursday identified a Crookston police officer who shot and wounded a man following a lengthy police pursuit on Monday in Polk County.

Officer Sean Murphy, who has 14 years of law enforcement experience, is on standard leave as the BCA investigates.

The man who was shot, 34-year-old Caleb Coffey of Oklahoma, has been charged in Polk County with five counts, including fleeing police and second-degree assault.

According to the BCA and court documents, the incident started when Coffey allegedly tried to cross from North Dakota into Canada with a handgun, at the Pembina border crossing. Border Patrol agents pursued the car south and then east into Minnesota, reaching speeds of 120 miles an hour.

Border Patrol agents and local officers tried to block the road with spiked stop-strips, which Coffey allegedly dodged multiple times. He also allegedly swerved across the center line several times and forced one vehicle off the road to avoid a head-on crash.

He eventually went into a ditch west of Crookston. Authorities said Coffey left the car with a gun in hand and threatened to harm himself.

“After repeated requests to drop the gun, an officer shot the driver in the leg,” the criminal complaint against Coffey states.

Coffey was treated at a hospital for non-life-threatening injuries, then taken to the Northwest Regional Correctional Center in Crookston. He remained in custody on Thursday. He’s due back in court on April 17.

No one else was in his vehicle, and no one else was injured in the incident. The BCA said there is squad and body camera footage of the incident. The BCA also said it recovered a gun from the scene, near where Coffey was wounded. The criminal complaint said authorities also found a second gun, a suppressor for one of the guns, and a bullet-resistant vest.

It’s the third shooting involving a Crookston police officer in the past year. Two people died in separate police shootings involving Crookston police in May and June of 2024.