Police groups blast $10K bail in Anoka deputy assault case
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Minnesota police groups say bail for a man charged with assaulting an Anoka County sheriff's deputy is “outrageously low.”
On Nov. 6, a Ham Lake resident called 911 to report an attempted break-in by Robert J. Kozicky, his next-door neighbor.
The caller said that Kozicky, 41, was speaking incoherently while walking along the street in their cul-de-sac. According to the criminal complaint, the man told the dispatcher that Kozicky tore off his screen door and tried to use it as a battering ram to break open the interior door.
The first deputy to respond ordered Kozicky to the ground and told him to put his hands behind his back. He initially complied, but then prosecutors say that Kozicky got up and charged at the officer. She deployed her taser but the probes missed and the officer fell to the ground.
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Kozicky allegedly lifted the deputy off the ground and slammed her headfirst into the concrete driveway. The deputy “struggled to get to her feet and stumbled” as she tried to chase Kozicky, according to the criminal complaint. A second officer arrested him behind the house.
The deputy was “covered in blood from a head wound” and hospitalized, prosecutors say. The complaint does not detail the extent of the officer’s injuries.
In a joint statement Tuesday, the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association and Law Enforcement Labor Services, a police union, said that the deputy suffered a head laceration and possible concussion and is recovering at home.
Prosecutors on Friday charged Kozicky with burglary and assaulting a peace officer. Assistant Anoka County Attorney Joanna Thiele Curry requested $75,000 bond if Kozicky would agree to abide by certain conditions of release including not using any alcohol or drugs.
But Judge Jennifer Peterson set conditional bond at $10,000, and Kozicky was released from jail Sunday after paying 10 percent of that amount, or $1,000, to a bail bondsman.
In their statement, the law enforcement groups said that the bail amount is far too low and puts police and the public at risk.
“To see someone accused of violently slamming a deputy’s head into pavement and walk out on $10,000 bail is outrageous,” said LELS Executive Director Jim Mortenson. “It tells every officer in Minnesota that their safety is negotiable.”
Court records show that Anoka County authorities filed a petition to have Kozicky civilly committed for mental illness in 2005. But because the case is more than 20 years old, the records are incomplete and do not include details of his diagnosis or the length of his hospitalization.
