Trejean Curry sentenced in the death of Father Dennis Dempsey; Council votes down a Gaza ceasefire resolution (2024)

• April 18, 2024
• 8:12 am

Almost two-and-a-half years to the day since a tragic accident took the life of Father Dennis Dempsey, a Minneapolis man was sentenced yesterday for his role in the vehicle crash.

Trejean Derrell Curry, age 28, will serve up to five years of probation, 40 hours of community work service and 150-days in jail. That was the sentence handed down by Dakota County Judge Dannia Edwards

Curry’s jail sentence can be served in 30-day increments over the period of his probation.

In early January, Curry pled guilty to one count of criminal vehicular homicide (gross negligence)

According to the criminal complaint filed in Dakota County, on the afternoon of Monday, October 25th, 2021, the Rosemount Police Department responded to a call of a crash that involved a vehicle, driven by Curry, and a bicyclist on County Road 42. Upon arrival, officers found a non-responsive male who was later identified as 73-year-old Dennis Keith Dempsey who was pronounced dead at the scene.

Dempsey was a beloved figure in Northfield.

Father Denny, as he liked to be called, was the pastor at St. Dominic’s Catholic Church in Northfield from 2004-2019. While there, Dempsey was renowned as a man who connected the Spanish speaking people of Northfield with the greater community. His kind nature and good humor made him enormously popular with his congregation and far beyond.

After leaving St. Dominic’s, Father Denny did missionary work in Venezuela, where he had previously worked, and then took a position as a priest at the Church of the Risen Savior in Burnsville. He had been in that position for just a few months before he passed away.

Findings from a search warrant to obtain a sample of Curry’s blood found that neither alcohol nor drugs played a role in the crash.

A statement issued by Dakota County Attorney Katherine Keena’s office said this was not the kind of sentence they had originally pursued, however factual disputes arose during the investigation and reconstruction of the accident, including aspeed calculation that differed from what was in the original crash report. Additionally, the Dakota County Community Corrections Department recommended what Keena called a “downward dispositional departure from the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines.”

Keena said Dempsey’s family had approved the sentence before she signed off on it.

Council sees local focus as a priority in ceasefire resolution debate

On Tuesday night, the Northfield City Council failed to approve a resolution supporting a ceasefire in the Gaza strip.

For several meetings in a row, a group of concerned Northfielders have packed the City Council Chambers, holding signs demanding an end to the hostilities between Israel and the Palestinians of Gaza. At least a dozen members of the group have spoken to the council in each of the meetings, making an impassioned plea to pass a resolution, using words like genocide and American complicity.

Northfield Mayor Rhonda Pownell addressed the gathered crowd at each meeting, saying the Council has a policy to not consider any resolutions that do not directly affect the business or people of Northfield.

City Councilors Davin Sokup and George Zuccolotto worked together to create a resolution they believed would be somewhat Northfield centric insupport of a ceasefire and put it on Tuesday night’sagenda. Sokup said in a prepared statement that he believes, despite the council’s policy, passing the resolution was the right thing to do. Zuccolotto said that Northfielders sometimes don’t see how violent the world can be, and he appealed to the humanity of the other members of the council in asking for their support.

Despite the pleas and the work done by Sokup and Zuccolotto, the resolution did not find the necessary support to pass.

Three of the Council members present also read prepared statements. Council Brad Ness said he believes the council’s policy is important in order to keep special interest groups from asking the Council for resolutions for anything they see fit that would have nothing to do with city business. He also said he believes that, if the resolution were to pass, a pro-Israel group would come to the council asking for a resolution insupport of Israel.

Councilor Jessica Peterson White said in her statement that she was completely sympathetic to the ceasefire cause, but the Northfield City Council only has so many resources. A ceasefire resolution, she said, is not something those resources can support. Councilor Kathleen Holmes echoed Peterson White’s comments, saying she too hoped the conflict would end soon, but she feels the council’s policy is a necessary one. She said she would neither vote for nor against the resolution because she did not feel it should have been in front of the Council to begin with.

Mayor Pownell, who voted “No,” on the resolution, said she sympathized with the group before them.

“This is the third official City Council meeting where we’ve had a lot of people in attendance. The room is packed, usually standing room only. They’re very passionate about this because they know people that live over in Gaza that have been harmed by this situation. Some are just taking the policy position that we should not be encouraging wars in other countries.”

Along with the mayor, Councilor Ness voted “No.” Councilors Sokup and Zuccolotto both voted in favor of the resolution. Councilors Peterson White and Holmes elected to use the “Present, Not Voting” option. Councilor Jami Reister did not attend the meeting on Tuesday night.

Jeff Johnson’s full conversation with Northfield Mayor Rhonda Pownell and City Administrator Ben Martig can be heard here

KYMN NEws 4/18/24

Rich Larson is the KYMN News Director. Contact him at rich@kymnradio.net

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