Associated Press
MINNEAPOLIS — A Minnesota man who authorities say killed a sheriff’s deputy in a hospital over the weekend had terrorized his wife just a week earlier, according to a criminal complaint.
Danny Leroy Hammond, 50, was accused of locking up his wife, Korena Hammond, on Oct. 10 after she said she wanted to end their 12-year marriage.
The complaint said Hammond forced his wife to lie in bed with him as he pointed the pistol at her and himself, and that the gun fired once, hitting a television. Korena Hammond told authorities her husband forced her to eat food he said contained rat poison before she talked him into letting her go to her father’s house the next day. Officers who went to their home in Glen Township looking for Hammond were unable to find him.
He was charged Oct. 12 with counts including kidnapping, assault and terroristic threats, and a warrant was issued for his arrest.
Police say Danny Hammond was being treated at a St. Cloud hospital on Sunday when he grabbed a gun from Aitkin County Sheriff’s Deputy Steven Martin Sandberg and killed him. Authorities said hospital security officers used a stun gun to subdue Hammond and he later died.
Hammond was not handcuffed at the time and it was not immediately clear why he was at the hospital in St. Cloud, about 60 miles northwest of Minneapolis.
The Associated Press left a phone message for the county sheriff Monday seeking information.
Drew Evans, superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said investigators were trying to determine what led to the shooting. Evans and hospital vice president Kurt Otto declined to say why Hammond was at the hospital. Otto said the hospital had asked the sheriff’s office to send deputies to monitor Hammond because of the “seriousness” of the domestic incident. They would not say how long Hammond had been in the hospital, except that it was more than a day.
Sandberg, 60, had been with department since 1981 and an investigator for 20 years.
Hammond had been convicted of felony crimes including escaping from custody in 1990, third-degree burglary in 1989 and terrorist threats in 1990, according to court records. All the convictions were for crimes committed in Aitkin County.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press