A federal lawsuit alleges a Cottage Grove man died last year after Eagan police officers mistook “classic stroke signs and symptoms” for possible drug use and Dakota County jail corrections officers did nothing while he was in custody.

Kingsley Fifi Bimpong, 50, suffered a stroke sometime before he drove his car onto a median on Nov. 16 in Eagan. Bimpong, who had just left his job as a postal employee, was then arrested after Eagan officers suspected drug or alcohol impairment and held in custody for five hours and 40 minutes, despite “exhibiting obvious physical and cognitive abnormalities that required urgent medical attention,” according to the lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court of Minnesota.

After being found unresponsive in a cell at the Dakota County jail, Bimpong was taken to United Hospital in St. Paul, where it was determined that he was brain dead. Bimpong’s family members, some of whom live in his homeland of Ghana, were contacted and decided to take him off a ventilator on Nov. 19, the lawsuit says.

Kingsley Fifi Bimpong (Courtesy of Robins Kaplan LLP)

“What this comes down to is the defendants’ acted on incorrect and unfounded assumptions that led to their callous indifference, which then resulted in Kingsley’s death,” said attorney Katie Bennett of Robins Kaplan, which is representing Bimpong’s family.

The lawsuit, which also names jail corrections officers, alleges Bimpong’s civil rights were violated and seeks in excess of $40 million for compensatory and punitive damages.

“The complaint paints a dire picture of what Kingsley went through, and those numbers are intended to signal the seriousness and the severity of the case,” Bennett said.

Drug test not completed

According to the lawsuit, Bimpong left his job at the post office because of a headache and decreased vision. Around 10:45 p.m., Eagan police officer Joseph Moseng saw him turn left on a red light, drive into oncoming traffic and onto the center median.

Bimpong was confused and couldn’t tell the officer his name or where he lived. He didn’t respond to directions from the officer to shut off his car or hand over his car keys. He was off-balance and stumbled when he exited his car. The officer noted that he did not smell of alcohol.

“Upon first contact, it was obvious something was very wrong, and the evidence of (Bimpong’s) disconcerting condition only increased with each passing moment,” the lawsuit says.

Two more officers, Liam O’Shea and Martin Jensen, arrived on scene. Jensen was a drug recognition expert, but failed to complete all of the 12 steps of an evaluation used to determine if a person is under the influence of drugs, the lawsuit says.

“All Jensen did was use his flashlight to look at (Bimpong’s) eyes and note that (he) could not complete the field sobriety testing, which in and of itself dictated that (he) required medical care,” the lawsuit states.

Officer body-worn camera video showed that Bimpong could not complete the testing because he had difficulty walking, remained off balance and continued to be unable to understand or follow simple directions.

Moseng was heard telling Jensen that he was “still not convinced that this isn’t medical related more than impairment related.”

Around 11 p.m., officers arrested Bimpong, who had no criminal history, and took him to the Eagan Police Department for a blood draw, “even though the totality of the circumstances observed by the officers completely undermined any probable cause,” according to the lawsuit.

Once there, Bimpong’s health declined while officers obtained a search warrant for his blood. At times, he nodded off to sleep, and his right hand and arm showed signs of weakness.

Around 11:20 pm, Moseng and Jensen again discussed whether Bimpong could be suffering from a medical issue but did not provide him with medical care, according to the lawsuit.

Moseng called Bimpong’s work and was told that he had vanished after complaining of a headache and had left behind his cellphone. One of his co-workers thought he was “losing his mind by how he was acting,” the lawsuit reads.

Moseng then asked Jensen whether they should send Bimpong to a hospital. Jensen replied, “For what?” Jensen reminded Moseng that they would have to put Bimpong on a transport hold, meaning an officer would have to remain with him at the hospital — “something Jensen clearly did not want to do,” the lawsuit says.

“Jensen then switched back to claiming that Kingsley had taken a dissociative drug,” the lawsuit continued.

MHealth medics who arrived at the police station around 11:50 p.m. for the blood draw asked Moseng if the officers planned on transferring Bimpong to a hospital. Moseng replied that he did not know yet.

Around 12:15 a.m., Nov. 17, Jensen told Moseng that a drug recognition evaluation with Bimpong “would just be a whole bunch of time wasted,” the lawsuit states. A check of Bimpong’s pulse or other vital signs were not taken.

With the blood draw complete, the officers decided to take Bimpong to jail. He struggled to get into the squad car — Jensen had to put his right foot into the car for him. Around this time, Moseng had shut off his body-worn camera, but Jensen had not. Jensen went back around to the driver’s side of his squad and approached Moseng, who said: “Before you got there, I was like, is this dude having a stro … ” “Stroke” is cut off because Jensen muted his body-worn camera “as quickly as he could,” the lawsuit alleges.

At the jail

Jensen and Bimpong arrived at the county jail in Hastings around 12:45 a.m., two hours after Bimpong drove his car onto the median.

The jail’s surveillance video reportedly had no audio in November 2024, according to the lawsuit, which adds that was “unusual” among the state’s county jails. Moreover, the county reportedly only kept selected portions of jail surveillance video during Bimpong’s time at the jail.

“Given his classification, medical condition and subsequent hospitalization and death, the county was required to preserve all video from (Bimpong’s) incarceration,” the lawsuit states. “In fact, Minnesota Administrative Rules mandated that the jail preserve all such video.”

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But the jail surveillance video that “snuck through” showed jail officers repeatedly watching as Bimpong needed help to keep his balance during booking. In his booking paperwork, it was “incorrectly noted” that Bimpong had a “language barrier” and could not communicate.

“Instead, (Bimpong) could not verbally or otherwise communicate … in any meaningful way because he was suffering from a medical emergency,” the lawsuit says.

Once in his cell, jail officers continued to watch his suffering — mostly of him writhing on the floor, lying in his own urine — for nearly 3½ hours until he was unresponsive, cold to the touch and foaming at the mouth, according to the lawsuit.

Bimpong was first taken by ambulance to Regina Hospital in Hastings, where he arrived at 5:21 a.m., then to United Hospital.

An autopsy by the Ramsey County Medical Examiner’s Office determined Bimpong died of a brain bleed caused by a ruptured blood vessel. Toxicology findings were negative, except for the medication which had been administered as part of his hospitalization.

County, correctional officers also named

In addition to the three Eagan officers, the lawsuit names as defendants Dakota County and correctional officers Eduardo Decache, Brittany Corbin, Ramsey Strickland, Manuel Hernandez, Heather Hedden, Christopher Severson and Lucio Manuel Marquez Zazueta.

Vicki Hruby, an attorney representing the Eagan officers, said in an emailed statement on behalf of the city that, “While Mr. Bimpong’s death is tragic, he was not exhibiting an objectively serious medical condition that was obvious to lay persons at the time he was in the Eagan officers’ custody and there was no indication that he required emergent medical treatment.”

The officers have not been served with the lawsuit, Hruby said; “factual responses” to the allegations will be filed in federal court.

Dakota County Sheriff Joe Leko responded to an email seeking comment, “there will be a time when we will provide our response and position in this case, but being this case is under active litigation, we are unable to provide comment while the legal process is ongoing.”

Four months before Bimpong’s death, a lawsuit was filed in federal court against Dakota County and 10 of its corrections staff alleging they left Caleb Duffy, a 22-year-old Farmington man, in a padded cell naked and covered in his own feces, blood, urine and vomit for nearly 20 hours in July 2022 while his mental and physical health deteriorated to the point he was hospitalized in critical condition. That case is pending, with a status conference scheduled for Oct. 28.

 

 

 

 

 

 

By SEAN MURPHY

When Ann Walter looked outside her rural West Texas home, she didn’t know what to make of the bulky object slowly drifting across the sky.

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She was even more surprised to see what actually landed in her neighbor’s wheat field: a boxy piece of scientific equipment about the size of a sport-utility vehicle, attached to a massive parachute, adorned with NASA stickers. She called the local sheriff’s office and learned that NASA, indeed, was looking for a piece of equipment that had gone lost.

“It’s crazy, because when you’re standing on the ground and see something in the air, you don’t realize how big it is,” she said. “It was probably a 30-foot parachute. It was huge.”

Walter said she soon got a call from NASA’s Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility, which launches large unmanned, high altitude research balloons more than 20 miles into the atmosphere to conduct scientific experiments.

Officials at NASA, which is impacted by the ongoing government shutdown, did not return messages Thursday. A message left with the balloon facility also was not immediately returned.

In this photo provided by Ann Walter, labels are seen on a piece of NASA research equipment that Ann Walter says fell from the sky near her home in Edmonson, Texas, Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025. (Ann Walter via AP)

A launch schedule on the balloon facility’s website shows a series of launches from Fort Sumner, New Mexico, about 140 miles west of where the equipment landed.

Hale County Sheriff David Cochran confirmed that NASA officials called his office last week in search of the equipment.

Walter said she ultimately spoke with someone at the balloon facility who told her it had been launched a day earlier from Fort Sumner, and uses telescopes to gather information about stars, galaxies and black holes.

In this photo provided by Ann Walter, Ann Walter stands in front of a piece of NASA research equipment attached to a parachute that fell from the sky near her home in Edmonson, Texas, Thursday, Oct. 2, 2025. (Ann Walter via AP)

“The researchers came out with a truck and trailer they used to pick it up,” she said.

But not before Walter and her family, who live in Edmonson, Texas, were able to capture some photos and videos.

“It’s kind of surreal that it happened to us and that I was part of it,” she said. “It was a very cool experience.”

By MATTHEW BROWN and MATTHEW DALY

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional Republicans have voted to roll back restrictions on mining, drilling and other development in three Western states, advancing President Donald Trump’s ambitions to expand energy production from public lands.

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Senators voted 50-46 Thursday to repeal a land management plan for a large swath of Alaska that was adopted in the final weeks of Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration. Lawmakers voted to roll back similar plans for land in Montana and North Dakota earlier this week.

The timing of Biden’s actions made the plans vulnerable to the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to terminate rules that are finalized near the end of a president’s term. The resolutions require a simple majority in each chamber and take effect upon the president’s signature.

The House approved the repeals last month in votes largely along party lines. Trump is expected to sign the measures, which will boost a proposed 211-mile road through an Alaska wilderness to allow mining of copper, cobalt, gold and other minerals.

Trump ordered approval of the Ambler Road project earlier this week, saying it will unlock access to copper, cobalt and other critical minerals that the United States needs to compete with China on artificial intelligence and other resource development. Copper is used in the production of cars, electronics and even renewable energy technologies such as wind turbines.

The road was approved in Trump’s first term, but was later blocked by Biden after an analysis determined the project would threaten caribou and other wildlife and harm Alaska Native tribes that rely on hunting and fishing.

(AP Graphic)

The Biden-era restrictions also included a block on new mining leases in the nation’s most productive coal-producing region, the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming. On Monday, the Trump administration held the biggest coal sale in that area in more than a decade, drawing a single bid of $186,000 for 167.5 million tons of coal, or about a tenth of a penny per ton.

Trump has largely cast aside Biden’s goal to reduce climate-warming emissions from the burning of coal and other fossil fuels extracted from federal land. Instead, he and congressional Republicans have moved to open more taxpayer-owned land to fossil fuel development, hoping to create more jobs and revenue. The Republican administration also has pushed to develop critical minerals, including copper, cobalt, gold and zinc.

A decision on whether to accept the recent bid from the Navajo Transitional Energy Co. is pending, and the lease cannot be issued until the Montana land plan is altered. The dirt-cheap value reflects dampened industry interest in coal despite Trump’s efforts. Many utilities have switched to cheaper natural gas or renewables such as wind and solar power.

Administration officials expressed disappointment that they did not receive “stronger participation” in the Montana sale. In a statement, Interior Department spokesperson Aubrie Spady blamed a “decades long war on coal” by Biden and former Democratic President Barack Obama.

Republican Sen. Tim Sheehy of Montana said the repeal of the land-management plan in his state was “putting an end to disastrous Biden-era regulations that put our resource economy on life support.”

Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska called the Biden-era plan for 13 million acres in the central Yukon region “a clear case of federal overreach that locks up Alaska’s lands, ignores Alaska Native voices … and blocks access to critical energy, gravel & mineral resources.”

The GOP legislation “restores balance, strengthens U.S. energy & mineral security and upholds the law,” Sullivan said in a statement.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum points to a map of Alaska as he speaks before President Donald Trump signs an executive order in the Oval Office at the White House, Monday, Oct. 6, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democrats urged rejection of the repeals, arguing that Trump’s fossil fuel-friendly agenda is driving up energy prices because renewable sources are being sidelined even as the tech industry’s power demands soar for data centers and other projects.

“We are seeing dramatic increases in the price of energy for American consumers and businesses and the slashing of American jobs, so that Donald Trump can give an easy pass to the fossil fuel industry,” Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia said Wednesday on the Senate floor.

Last week, the administration canceled almost $8 billion in grants for clean energy projects in 16 states that Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris won in the 2024 election.

Ashley Nunes, public lands specialist at the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group, said Republicans were unleashing “a wholesale assault on America’s public lands.” Using the Congressional Review Act to erase land management plans “will sow chaos across the country and turn our most cherished places into playgrounds for coal barons and industry polluters,” she said.

Brown reported from Billings, Montana.

By NICHOLAS RICCARDI

DENVER (AP) — Voting equipment company Dominion Voting Systems, a target of false conspiracy theories from President Donald Trump and his supporters since the 2020 election, has been bought by a firm run by a former Republican elections official, the new company announced Thursday.

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The newly formed company, Liberty Vote, also vowed to follow the executive order Trump signed last spring seeking sweeping changes to election policies that multiple judges have put on hold for violating the Constitution.

KNOWiNK, a St. Louis-based provider of electronic poll books that allow election officials to confirm voter information, announced the deal and the name change. In a possible nod to a groundless conspiracy theory that linked Dominion to the late Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, the release highlighted that the company would become “100% American-owned.”

The announcement also quotes KNOWiNK’s owner, former St. Louis elections director Scott Leiendecker, as vowing to provide “election technology that prioritizes paper-based transparency,” one of the longtime demands of election conspiracy theorists. Almost all U.S. voting equipment already leaves a paper trail.

Dominion’s former CEO confirmed the sale in a single-sentence statement on Thursday: “Liberty Vote has acquired Dominion Voting Systems,” John Poulos said.

The release from the new company vows to reintroduce “hand-marked paper ballots” and adjust company policies to follow Trump’s executive order on voting procedures, which is not in effect because judges have ruled that Trump doesn’t have the power to mandate them. Part of the president’s order sought to prohibit voting equipment that produces a paper record with “a barcode or quick-response code” — equipment that is currently in use in hundreds of counties across 19 states.

Denver-based Dominion was at the heart of some of the most fevered conspiracy theories about Trump’s loss to Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 election. Those false allegations sparked a number of defamation lawsuits against conservative-leaning media and the president’s allies, including a settlement in 2023 in which Fox News agreed to pay Dominion $787 million and one this year that Newsmax settled for $67 million.

The announcement from the new company does not disclose the cost of the transaction, but a spokesman said all the money was put up by Leiendecker. Both companies involved are privately held.

The false allegations against Dominion made its brand toxic in many Republican-leaning states and counties. But voting machine companies are usually careful about making overt political statements, given that the market for their equipment is split between places under Republican and Democratic control.

The statements by Liberty Vote saying it will align with Trump’s executive order, which has been challenged by Democratic state attorneys general, the Democratic National Committee and an array of voting and civil rights groups, could lead to concerns in blue states that currently use Dominion equipment.

But some election officials said Thursday that KNOWiNK had seemed to steer clear of 2020 conspiracy theories and acted like a typical, nonpartisan firm.

“They have a good reputation in the field,” Stephen Richer, a Republican who was targeted by Trump and his allies when he served as the top elections official in Arizona’s Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix.

Despite years of detailed debunking of the Dominion conspiracy theories, Trump has continued to repeat them even as recently as a few weeks ago, when he vowed to get rid of voting machines. The president doesn’t have the power to do that because the Constitution gives states and Congress the authority to set election and voting rules.