St. Cloud Police Chief Says Burnsville Tragedy Felt By Departments Across the State

(KNSI) – St. Cloud Police Chief Jeff Oxton says incidents like those in Burnsville Sunday are felt across the profession.

Two officers and a paramedic were killed responding to a domestic situation. Oxton is trying to view the tragedy through a silver lining. He says murder-suicide calls are some of the toughest to field, and that was avoided.

“What we don’t have in Burnsville is seven dead kids and a person that took their lives and then shot himself. And although we don’t have a glass ball to tell what would have happened had the police not intervened, that’s how I look at it. Those heroic people went there and saved lives that day.”

The SCPD already had a State of the Force address already planned for this week and Oxton says the Burnsville tragedy became a major part of what he talked about. He also discussed how you keep the same thing from happening locally. He says the best way to avoid the worst is to become embedded broadly in the city’s neighborhoods.

“In my 29 years and now being a chief, most of the issues we deal with as police department are not police issues. They’re community issues that need community answers and solutions and input and support. And so, we have a great community that reaches out and engages with us to help solve those problems, and that’s huge.”

Oxton says the SCPD is willing to try new things and encourages suggestions from everyone. That’s how the COP House initially started. It was an idea submitted by a rank-and-file member of the department.

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