MN Deputy On Leave During Investigation

LUVERNE, MN - A Rock County, Minnesota, Sheriff's Deputy is on paid administrative leave while officials look into allegations of possible misconduct.

Deputy Kyle Kreun has been on leave since December 30.

Kreun has been a Rock County Deputy for nearly four years, and Sheriff Evan Verbrugge says he has never had any disciplinary problems with him before.  But when Verbrugge got a tip on some potential misconduct involving Kreun about a week ago, he put him on administrative leave and called in an outside agency to investigate.

It's news that comes as a surprise to people like Luverne resident Cassandra Smook who says they don't hear about cases like this very often in southwest Minnesota.

"No, not around here; don't have that much.  Usually law enforcement are pretty good people," Smook said.

Since this case involves a Rock County Sheriff's Deputy, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension has been investigating the case.

"If there is a potential misconduct on the staff of a law enforcement agency, instead of doing an investigation into their own agencies employees, they will ask us as an independent agency to come in and conduct an investigation for them. That's what we've done in this case," Jill Oliveira with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said.

The Minnesota BCA says they are still conducting interviews and gathering information in this case right now and aren't releasing any other details.

Smook is glad an outside agency has been called in to investigate.

"I don't want somebody local to get favoritism for him, or anybody he might know already," Smook said.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension will turn over the findings of their investigation to the Rock County Attorney once they are done with their work to see if any charges need to be pursued.

If the county attorney's office thinks there is a conflict of interest, another attorney may be called in.