The vast majority of kids do stupid things that we encounter. And some of them are criminal offenses.”

Washington County Attorney Kevin Magnuson

Are you a young person thinking about trying the Kia Challenge? Don’t come to Washington County! You’ll be prosecuted for it.
Washington County Attorney Kevin Magnuson came to the Cottage Grove Council meeting Wednesday Oct. 1, giving a presentation on crime statistics to the council members.
Magnuson introduced himself at the podium.
“My name is Kevin Magnuson, I’m the county attorney,” he said. “I don’t really have an agenda other an to come and say ‘hi,’ give you an overview of some of what’s going on in the office.”
Sharing some personal life details before shifting to a presentation, Magnuson started his presentation.
“Our office has sixty one and a half employees,” he said, clarifying the half was half-time. “Split equally between employees and attorneys.”
Starting with the offices criminal division, Magnuson said there were 12 attorneys, whose job it was to support victims, do justice and project public safety, hold criminals accountable, and train and support law enforcement.
“I’ll just say this and I don’t say this lightly at all,” he said. “Looking at the criminal (justice) work that we do, public safety is my paramount concern, and that sounds obvious. But I think there’s been a movement in the last five years or so where when’s there an attempt to reintroduce someone into the community, someone who’s an offender and there’s an attempt to rehabilitation, the reason I say public safety is my paramount concern is I don’t think the risk of that person reentering society should be born by their neighbors.”
Shifting to crime statistics, Magnuson said there were 1,400 complaints each year in the county, with 1,200 of these. The reason, said Magnuson, was solid referrals from law enforcement.
“The quality of law enforcement in Washington County is good, the referrals are solid,” he said. “Sometimes there isn’t enough evidence or the victims aren’t cooperating, Sometimes there’s another case in another jurisdiction. And then sometime we use our prosecutorial discretion for someone to go down an alternate path where some might have to go into diversion for less serious crimes and really get their life straightened out.”
Magnuson went on to say that the county had a strong relationship with law enforcement.
“We are fortunate to have a very strong partnership with all the law enforcement in Washington County. Pete Koerner is phenomenal.”
As for crime trends they had seen a COVID spike.
“It’s no surprise that in 2020, 2021, 2022, everything having to do with auto thefts just skyrocketed,” Magnuson said of the COVID pandemic era as it related to crime. With auto theft related crimes at 55 in 2019, 2020 saw this jump to 79, followed by 93 in 2021, and 77 in 2022.
The trend had since decreased, returning to 46 in 2023 and 47 in 20224.
“The good news is that we’re trending downwards,” Magnuson shared, saying he expected 2025 to be similar. Criminal sexual conduct had seen a slight spike then decreased, with 38 cases in 2018, 48, in 2019, 38 in 2020, 50 in 2021, 43 in 2022, 40 in 2023, and 30 in 2024.
“It’s hard to draw a real conclusion from these numbers,” Magnuson said, with some cases facing difficulty in being charged.
As for homicides, the rate varied by year.
“And then for homicides, they’re all over depending on the year they come to us,” he said. Numbers shared by Magnuson showed four homicides each year for 2018, 2019, and 2021, with three in 2022, six in 2023, and five in 2024. Just one homicide took place in 2021, with some investigated but not charged as of yet for 2025. Washington County had previously had two homicides a year before the numbers increased, a change Magnuson attributed partly to changes in society.
“I think that’s just reflecting the increased population and some changes in society that are making society a little more violent,” he said of higher homicide numbers. “We’re seeing that born out in the crime trends.”
Returning to auto theft, Magnuson said auto theft joyrides were a prime driver of sending people towards their initial crime related law enforcement encounter.
“It used to be that smoking dope and shoplifting were kind of the entry level crimes ,” he said. “And that’s when people started encountering law enforcement. Now one of the biggest thing is joyriding. And joyriding is this phenomenon where someone 12, 13 years steals a car.” Using a piece of metal or USB cord to jumpstart a vulnerable old vehicle, the young car thief then wants to show their friends.
“Someone steals a car the first thing they want to do is get their buddies and show them,” Magnuson said. “So then they start driving around and doing what you do in a stolen car and that’s commit crimes. Pretty soon the person who’s invited along who hasn’t been on a joyride or hasn’t been in a scenario where they’re committing criminal offenses starts to join in on whatever they’re doing.
Pretty soon they’ll want to take the Kia Challenge themselves,” he said, referring to a TikTok trend. “So what you’re seeing is a lot of law enforcement at that point. At that point they’ve had this journey from what we would consider the normal indiscretions of a kid to something that is more serious, before they hit the justice system.”
For those thinking about the Kia Challenge, however, automatic license plate readers and Flock cameras meant hiding was harder than before.
“I think you’re getting them if you don’t have them already,” Magnuson said of the automatic plate readers. “They’ve been really successful in Woodbury.”
Magnuson shared thoughts on those who said such practices violated civil rights.
“There are ways it could be used that way,” he said. “I think the safeguards we have, you know where you need to get a warrant to use this to follow someone protects a lot of that, but what’s interesting about this is when it gets a hit no one knows the demographics of the person driving it. They just know there’s a plate, with a file attached to it, in a location. And then whatever happens from there is based on that legitimate tip. So if you’re concerned about prejudicial stops and that sort of thing, that’s really not the case when you’ve got an automatic license plate reader.”
As for flight in motor vehicles, it had risen, with 35 in 2018 follows by a steady rise to a peak of 111 in 2022, before returning to back down to 75 in 2024.
“This is the number that just blows me away,” Magnuson said of flight in motor vehicles. “I think it’s indicative of a lot of problems we have in society…I don’t editorialize on who’s right and who’s wrong, but kids who maybe don’t have a lot of structure running around on the street with a $700 iPhone isn’t the greatest thing for our society.” Magnuson shared two videos of fleeing vehicles, as well as one of cell phone data obtained via warrant, tracking suspects from Minneapolis to Mahtomedi.
“It’s important to note that all this is subject to a warrant,” Magnuson said of tracking locations. “All this is pursuant to a warrant. So any of these has to be okayed by a judge.”
Magnuson also shared on the work of the East Metro Human Trafficking Task Force.
“The Human Trafficking Task Force is doing great things,” he said, saying it had shifted focus
“We’ve shifted the focus a bit. We’re still doing the stings and recovery operations on a larger scale, but the investigating of trafficking of individuals involved on either side of it has really ramped up.”
Among those juveniles are at high risk for human trafficking are runaways and the homeless, as well as chat room and dark web users.
Among sobering statistics is that fact a runaway kid will be solicited for sex within 48 hours, on average.
“It used to be when you have a runaway kid you go down to the Greyhound station and look for them,” Magnuson said. “Now it’s their phone. They’re on some sort of social media long before they leave and often communicating with someone they haven’t met before, and that’s under false pretenses.”
Fast intervention helped, with one case shared by Magnuson involving a perpetrator getting 100 months in prison and registering as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
Also important were sting operations, catching the bad guys before they could do harm. Minneapolis and St. Paul were higher traffic areas for this. As for victims, it was a resource intense process, with a residential recovery program called Corrie’s House in the works and on way to approval.
Also touched on briefly was juvenile prosecution.
“The vast majority of kids do stupid things that we encounter,” said Magnuson. “And some of them are criminal offenses.” Going through a diversion program to work out issues was very successful, while a small number of more serious offenses taking more case work.
“The image after COVID is dangerous crime everywhere, and we just haven’t seen that in Washington County,” he said. “Thank you for having me. I think the takeaway is we’re doing everything we can to keep people safe.”
Council members were given a chance for comments after the presentation.
“Thank you for explaining the Flock cameras as this roles out,” Council member David Clausen said. “There’s a lot of questions from the public as this roles out: Is this Big Brother? It really isn’t.”
Justin Olsen asked Magnuson to explain the drug task force and its work.
“I wonder if you might take a moment or two to explain how that really works to the public,” Olsen said. “It’s all these different officers from all these different department coming together under one umbrella, but boy they seem to be pretty effective.”
“These crimes in general, they’re not fixed to a specific location,” Magnuson said of the drug task force. “They implicate the entirety of Washington County often. And so the drug task force brings in law enforcement, and a member from our office who’s on the task force. To investigate and review the charges and file a complaint. We’re also very involved in guiding the process…that drug task force has been really effective.” Olsen followed up asking Magnuson to comment on the local non profit Youth Service Bureau.
“Thank you for bringing that up,” Magnuson said. “Youth Service Bureau has been a cornerstone for us. They’re the ones that provide the diversionary services…we’re just fortunate that we don’t have to create that from scratch. So hat’s off to the YSB.”
Mayor Bailey thanked Magnuson for his presentation, saying Washington County had a different perspective on crime from some other counties in the metro area.
“If a kid in Washington County steals a car, the full weight of the law is going to come down on them is that correct?” Bailey asked.
“That’s correct,” Magnuson said. Kids weren’t punished in the same way as adults, but other counties had swung the other way in terms of punishment. Kids didn’t always realize the consequences of their actions at court hearings, with appropriate consequences helping them to.
“When the crime is serious enough, I want to make it really inconvenient for the parents,” Magnuson said. “You should have to go pick them up.” Detaining kids for a certain period of time helped drive home the point that something was serious. The answer to things like prejudicial stops was rooting out those officers doing them, not choosing to do lax enforcement instead.
“There was a kid in jail for car theft a few years back, talking with this buddies.” Magnuson said. “He said, ‘don’t come to Washington County, because they’re serious.’ I would love to p