SUV hits Plymouth police officer at late-night crash scene

A Plymouth police sergeant on foot outside her squad car at a hit-and-run crash scene on a frontage road was run over by an SUV, authorities said Wednesday.

Angela Haseman, 43, was struck about 10:45 p.m. Tuesday along southbound Kilmer Lane N., which runs along Hwy. 169, according to the State Patrol.

Haseman was taken to North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale with an ankle injury, the patrol said.

The SUV driver, Dennis Nyandieka, 22, of Bloomington, was not hurt.

Haseman was responding to a hit-and-run involving a downed power pole along Kilmer, just west of Hwy. 169 and east of Medicine Lake, said Patrol Lt. Tiffani Nielson. Haseman got out of her squad car to check on whether the power lines were live, Nielson added.

As Haseman stood in the road, and with the emergency lights of her vehicle and a second squad car flashing, the SUV struck the sergeant, according to the lieutenant.

"He was blinded by the emergency lights" and clipped Haseman, Nielson said. "We decided not to cite this driver."

Nielson said "it's pretty fortunate it was a glancing strike" that the sergeant absorbed.

Haseman, who has been with the Plymouth police force for more than 16 years, has been one of her department's more visible officers. She has co-hosted a community cable television show called "Along for the Ride," a program about policing.

She also has entered and won various beauty pageants since 2005. She won Mrs. Minnesota International in 2006 and captured a similar title in South Dakota in 2011. She is a 1994 graduate of Augustana University in Sioux Falls.

Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482