Police officer accused of fatal accident suspended after previous accidents

The Minnesota state trooper charged Tuesday with killing a woman during a chase in May had previously been suspended twice for causing an accident with his patrol car and had received written warnings for two other accidents.

In April 2023, 13 months before he allegedly struck the Ford Focus Olivia Flores was driving, police officer Shane Roper attempted to stop a speeding driver on the same stretch of Highway 52 near Apache Mall in Rochester.

According to his disciplinary record, which the Minnesota State Patrol released in response to a data request from MPR News, Roper pursued the vehicle onto an exit ramp at 16th Street, lost control of his patrol car and crashed into a barrier.

The dashboard camera was activated when Roper’s patrol car reached speeds of 90 miles per hour and recorded him “cutting across all lanes” to catch the speeder, wrote Christina Bogojevic, then-deputy chief of the State Patrol.

Bogojevic, who became head of the agency in May, later suspended Roper for a day without pay. She noted in her report that Roper’s hazard lights and siren were not on at the time of the accident.

Many details of the 2023 incident are similar to those of the May 18 crash that killed Flores and injured five others. Olmsted County prosecutors allege Roper attempted to pursue a driver from the same Sixth Street on-ramp to southbound Highway 52 after observing “an apparent minor traffic violation.”

According to the indictment, he followed the vehicle at 83 miles per hour onto 12th Street and collided with the Focus as it turned left into the mall.

Roper’s supervisors had previously given him a one-day deferment for a May 2021 incident in which he failed to yield the right of way to a driver making a left turn at a stop sign in Rochester. According to the report, Roper was “not responding to any emergency calls” or pursuing a suspected traffic offender at the time.

Roper reportedly told investigators that he could not remember seeing the stop sign, nor could he remember any events that led to the accident.

The officer’s record includes a written warning for striking a deer in December 2021 while responding to a call for assistance from a Dodge County Sheriff’s deputy. During that incident, then-Deputy Chief Rochelle Schrofer found Roper driving 77 miles per hour on a snow-covered road with a posted speed limit of 55 miles per hour.

Roper, who joined the State Patrol in early 2016, also received a written warning for colliding with another state vehicle in February 2019 in response to a call for help, injuring the driver.

Attorneys for the Flores family said Tuesday they want Gov. Tim Walz and the Department of Public Safety to launch an independent investigation to determine why Roper was allowed to remain on the road despite his history of reckless driving.

Roper, 32, is on paid leave as his criminal case progresses. His first appearance before an Olmsted County judge is scheduled for Aug. 29.