BURNSVILLE, MINNESOTA – On January 25, 2024, Burnsville Police were dispatched to a Well Fargo Bank in the City of Burnsville after they received notification of two panic alarms being triggered. According to the criminal complaint from the Dakota County Attorney’s Office, dispatch was told that an individual, who would later be identified as 41-year-old Tesfa Wondemagegnehu, had entered the bank and demanded $50.00. Employees at the bank gave Wondemagegnehu the $50.00, and then he fled the bank before police arrived.
An officer, who was in an unmarked police SUV with lights and a siren, found Wondemagegnehu traveling in a vehicle near the incident location and began to follow the suspect. A short distance later, the officer activated their lights and siren and attempted to initiate a traffic stop on Wondemagegnehu. Wondemagegnehu didn’t stop and instead began to speed up as he re-entered the freeway he had just exited. The pursuit of Wondemagegnehu lasted about a mile before the police terminated it. Another officer briefly attempted to pull the suspect over in a fully marked squad car with lights and a siren, but he did not stop.