County attorney: Impossible to prove Les Grumdahl had ill intent when he drove truck at reporter

The only conditions that would justify LG’s behavior in my mind are: if JR had a gun instead of a camera, if JR had breached a fenced-in area instead of been standing on a public road next to an open business, and if it was wartime and JR was dressed as the enemy.

You didn’t even have to tell him who you were. It’s a public road and it’s not against any laws to take pictures of businesses. I think my first response would have been “Are you trying to kill me?”

Do you know if the County Attorney even talked to LG? Did they do any investigation? Your (John’s) opinion is that LG was threatening “intent to cause fear in another of immediate bodily harm”. You have documented that. It appears that the County Attorney did nothing, except tell you your case was nothing… As a minimum, there should have been an investigation.

John,
If you had had a gun and pointed it at Mr. Grumdahl, fearing great bodily harm or death, you certainly would have been charged with something. Unless, of course, you were a law enforcement officer–then it would have been assumed there was intent and your life was threatened.

This is nothing new for folks that ride a bike to get around the town of Duluth. We get cut off intentionally, run off the shoulder up onto curbs and even crash. Trucks are the worst, they will come up within inches and scream at you. I have never tried to bring a complaint against any of them because I have no evidence but maybe we should all use cameras while riding.

This is an issue that happens every day. I’m not saying it’s right I would say the legal system fails us all the time. In this case it feels like they do not want to risk the time and money to help take someone off the road that may bring visible harm to someone. It will take a death and even then it wil take photos and videos. Not many cameras out in that area.

SAD state of affairs that won’t get much better any time soon.

Can you bring it further up the chain?

The vast majority of traffic offenses do not require any sort of intent, or negligence, or recklessness, or carelessness. These are called “strict liability” crimes–either you committed the action or you didn’t. There doesn’t have to be a criminal mindset of any type and the county attorney has an obligation to pursue it, unless they did not take their oath seriously, in which case they have no business holding that office.

Intent is not important in this case, because LG was breaking the law when the incident occurred, and that evidence is on video. LG broke the law (driving on the wrong side of the road) while obviously coming dangerously close to hitting a pedestrian on public property. Intent is irrelevant.

That said, the county attorney will do nothing, because there are so many people in LG’s pocket, he can do anything he wants to do with zero repercussions. He regularly screws over women (only keeping a shred of his word when confronted by a man), has made Holly Brown almost lose her home, has destroyed wilderness against an agreement he made, has repeatedly overcharged for work that he insists was not in the scope of the original quote (even when it is pointed out to him where it is), and quite frankly, deserves nothing less than to be sued out of business and left with nothing but shame, scorn, and malice, for the horrific, unscrupulous treatment of anyone trusting enough to hire him to do anything.

And I welcome his libel lawsuit if he reads the above comment.

That will be a glorious day, indeed.