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The former Albert Lea Police Department officer who was first to respond to the reports of fireworks and gunshots in November 2020 at Shady Oaks apartments and was shot in the chest said Monday he had to leave the department because of the shooting incident at the apartments.

Kody Needham, now a deputy with the Otter Tail County Sheriff’s Office, said in his first shift back after he came back from being shot Nov. 29, 2020, he was partnered with another officer and they were called to an animal complaint at Shady Oaks on the same floor only a few doors down from where defendant Devin Weiland had lived. He also had to respond there several other times.

“I couldn’t stand going back to that building having to take calls there,” Needham said.

Weiland is accused of shooting and injuring Needham as he responded to a 911 call and then leading police on a standoff for eight hours, shooting two other people during the process and firing more than 80 rounds.

He faces three charges of attempted murder in the first-degree and three charges of second-degree assault in the case.

Needham said Albert Lea was where he had planned to work until he retired but noted that just because he is an officer, it didn’t mean he had to put up with what he did the night of the incident.

Needham, who has spent six years in law enforcement and eight years in the military, including a nine-month deployment to Afghanistan, shared his experience from the early morning of Nov. 29, 2020.

He said at that time he worked the 4 p.m. to 4 a.m. shift, and his shift that day had started like any other day. But at 2:17 a.m., a call came into dispatch of fireworks or shots fired.

Needham said he was just about to pull into the Law Enforcement Center parking lot when the call came in and he headed toward the apartment complex.

He slowed down once he got to Front Street and Fourth Avenue, put his windows down and took what he described as a “tactical pause” to see if he heard anything as he approached.

He said he took a brief look around and listened and then started to slowly roll down Fourth Avenue.

As he started to pull into the driveway of the apartments and was going to drive down the parking lot on the north side, he said he remembered thinking, “Holy (expletive). Those are loud fireworks.” And from that point on he heard shots start to hit his car and then one hit his upper right chest where he was wearing a bullet-resistant vest.

He said he had no idea where the shots were coming from and his reaction from his training was to get out of the area. He accelerated his vehicle through the parking lot, through the open field behind the parking lot and through the old gas station parking lot at the corner of Maplehill Drive and Front Street before getting back onto Front Street and then turning north on U.S. Highway 69.

He radioed that shots had been fired, and that he was shot, and the dispatcher on the other line asked him to repeat himself. He said he was initially in disbelief that he had been shot but drove himself to the hospital as other officers responded.

Sgt. Tim Harves, who has worked for the department for 21 years, said he was at the Law Enforcement Center when the call came in.

He said all of the patrol officers on duty at the time responded to the call because it was a little unusual to receive a report of fireworks at that time of year. Officer Christopher Diesen said something about the call “didn’t feel right.”

When Harves was near Lou-Rich on Front Street he rolled his squad car windows down and heard what he described as semi-automatic gunfire — a “volley of gunfire” — an estimated six to 10 shots. Shortly after, Needham came on the radio yelling shots had been fired and he had been shot.

When he heard Needham’s call, Harves said he started thinking that it could potentially be an ambush and yelled out “Ambush” on the radio so the other officers could keep that in mind as they approached the scene. He said the natural inclination is to want to find their partner but they needed to be aware of the possibility.

Harves said Officer Christopher Diesen was ahead of him, and Officer Matthew Loeffler soon turned in front of him from a different direction.

Harves said as Diesen and Loeffler started to turn onto Fourth Avenue from Front Street, he saw taillights in the field ahead of them and initially thought that could be the shooter but later realized it was Needham.

Diesen had turned onto Fourth Avenue and said he heard two more shots in rapid succession. As he turned around he heard more shots ring out and saw a red vehicle come south on Fourth Avenue.

Officers ultimately pulled over the red car at gunpoint and discovered a frantic woman wanting to report gunshots in the front of Shady Oaks. She had a headlight that had been shot out as she drove past.

After that, officers went back to the intersection of Fourth Avenue and Front Street to take cover at a nearby city water pump house there and try to figure out where the shooter was.

Harves said at that time they did not know if the shooter was inside or outside of the building or if the shooter was still considered active.

Deputies with the Freeborn County Sheriff’s Office were also on scene, and other random shots were still being fired.

About 15 to 20 minutes after the start of the incident, officers learned there was someone who had been shot and was in the craft room of the building. Harves said it took two attempts to get the man, and another person who was helping him, out of the building, and Harves drove the man, Daniel Thorpe, to the hospital.

Harves and Diesen described the scene at the start of the incident as “chaos,” as people were coming out of the building and officers still didn’t realize where the shooter was.

Diesen said he maintained his position nearby a row of small trees to the north of Shady Oaks for hours and heard two distinct types of rifles and could also hear a shotgun blast.

Prosecutors also showed squad camera footage from Needham, as well as body camera footage from several of the initial responding officers.

At one point, almost three hours into the incident, Diesen could be heard calling his wife to let her know he was OK, and as he hung up a shot could be heard and a man driving by, identified as Patrick Flink, was shot in the leg through the car door.

Diesen said he and another officer pulled Flink out of the road to a safer spot in grass nearby where they put on a tourniquet.

Diesen said the gunfire was intermittent throughout the night.