Suspected car thief shoots at law enforcement during chase, standoff, sheriff says

A suspect in a car theft shot at law enforcement during a chase and standoff in southern Minnesota Monday morning, authorities said.

The suspect, a male whose age authorities did not disclose, allegedly abandoned a pickup truck on Highway 83 near Blue Earth County Road 90, the sheriff's office there said. Witnesses said they saw him transferring things into the allegedly stolen vehicle around 7 a.m.

Around 8:40 a.m., a caller reported a suspicious vehicle on a rural property near Amboy, Minnesota. Police from Mapleton, Minnesota, found the car on County Road 36 and tried to pull the driver over. The sheriff's office said the driver fled at speeds up to 100 mph, then left the roadway when trying to avoid tire deflation devices deployed by law enforcement.

The suspect got out of the vehicle and ran, firing into the air and at a deputy while he did so, according to the sheriff's office. More law enforcement responded and set up a perimeter while the suspect "continued to fire several times," the sheriff's office said.

Eventually, authorities saw the suspect had disposed of his gun and "closed in on" him, the sheriff's office said, using "less lethal tactics to bring him under control and take him into custody." Authorities later found his gun buried in the middle of a field.

At least nine different agencies responded to the incident.