DETROIT LAKES, Minn — At 4:45 a.m. Monday in Detroit Lakes, a 911 caller now identified as Sen. Nicole Mitchell's stepmother said "Somebody has broken into my house... and they just ran down into the basement," according to a 911 transcript obtained by KARE 11 News through a data practices request.
"I don't know if he's breaking out the back window or what," the caller continued.
"Did you get a good look at him at all?" dispatcher Joe Robbins asked.
"No, it was completely dark. I tripped over 'em. Ah, he was on the floor next to my bed. He ran downstairs into my basement."
Mitchell, a DFL state lawmaker from Woodbury, is charged with first-degree burglary. According to the criminal complaint, responding officers found her in the basement wearing all-black with a flashlight covered by a black sock.
In a statement on Facebook, Mitchell said she had traveled to Detroit Lakes in the middle of the night to check on the woman, who has Alzheimer's.
"Unfortunately, I startled this close relative, exacerbating paranoia, and I was accused of stealing, which I absolutely deny," Mitchell wrote.
According to the 911 transcript, the dispatcher asked the caller whether she could hear the person breaking out the window in the basement.
"I'm not hearing anything right now," the caller responded. "Maybe the window is already open down there. There's a basement -- a drop window that can crank open. I don't know.
According to the criminal complaint, officers noticed a backpack stuck in a small sliding window in the basement. While under arrest, Mitchell admitted entering the home through that window, the complaint said.
"Clearly I'm not good at this," Mitchell is quoted in the charging document as saying.
Mitchell told police she and her stepmother stopped speaking sometime after her father died and that she wanted to get various items that the stepmother wouldn't give her, such as her father's ashes, according to the complaint.
On the 911 call, the stepmother told the dispatcher she was armed with a small steaknife and continuously referred to the intruder as "he." At no point does she indicate she knew who was in the house.
The call ends when officers arrive and the caller lets them in.
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