Bemidji police squad strikes pedestrian in early morning crash

A Bemidji police sergeant struck a pedestrian on Irvine Avenue and sent the man to Sanford Hospital with life-threatening injuries. The crash happened around 1:07 a.m. July 15, while Sgt. Robert Brogren was driving north to conduct follow-up on a previous case.

Police accounts said the pedestrian was standing in the roadway and wearing all black when the squad car hit him. Brogren and other responding officers rendered aid at the scene before the man was taken to Sanford Hospital for treatment of his injuries. Valley News Live identified the pedestrian as 36 years old.

The crash immediately raised questions about how the collision was documented and what camera footage exists. A Bemidji Police Department policy manual includes rules for body-worn cameras and squad-car video cameras, and says compliance with those guidelines is mandatory. A search-result snippet tied to the incident said a Bemidji officer was wearing a body camera during the crash, and that the Minnesota BCA was investigating.

The public record around the crash also contained a conflicting age reference. A Valley News Live social post referred to a 21-year-old male with life-threatening injuries, but other published reports identified the pedestrian as 36.

The collision happened on one of Bemidji’s main north-south routes, in the dark hours before dawn, and it involved a marked police vehicle on duty. Those are the facts now anchoring the case: the time, the place, the officer’s route, the pedestrian’s condition, and the outside investigation that will determine how the city explains what happened on Irvine Avenue.