Ex-Troop's application refused to dismiss the indictment of the fatal Rochester crash

A judge in Olmsted denied the application of the former Minnesota soldier Shane Roper to fall against him for his role in an accident in 2024, in which Owatonna Teenager Olivia Flores was killed.

In a order signed on Wednesday, the district judge Lisa Hayne wrote that a reasonable jury could see that Ropers were very negligent due to the facts presented by the state.

Roper, who was released by the patrol in September last year, sees nine criminal complaints exposed to the fatal crash, including homicide second degree and criminal vehicle murder.

In court documents, Roper's defense argued that the former soldier acted as part of his duties when his patrol car collided in two vehicles at a busy intersection near Apache Mall in Rochester.

Flores, who was days from her high school diploma from High School, died of blunt injuries the next day. Five others were seriously injured in the crash.

In the order, the judge rejected the defense claim that the Ford Focus was to blame for Flores. The defense had determined that Ropers was green at the time of the crash and that the focus was not adding before it made a curve.

But Hayne wrote that the driver of the car was obliged to give in to oncoming traffic, but it is reasonable to believe that the driver who traveled to the speed rate that Roper traveled to the patrol would have come.

“A jury could find that their actions were completely appropriate and that the collision would not have occurred if Mr. Roper had not traveled 43 miles over the specified speed limit without lights or sirens,” wrote Hayne.