Steve Soyka

Minnesota will participate in an oral swab drugged driving pilot program in 2024. Stearns County Sheriff Steve Soyka says Stearns County would participate in the program but he hasn't been notified if the state will send any swabs their direction.

Every year the Stearns County Sheriff's Office honor guard honors an officer on the anniversary of that officer's death. Wednesday they honored deputy Steven Sandberg from Aitkin County who was killed while guarding a prisoner on October 18, 2015 at St. Cloud Hospital.

Everyone has a story and this is the story of Stearns County Sheriff Steve Soyka. Soyka grew up in St. Cloud and was interested in law enforcement at an early age. He says he remembers as a young boy playing cops and robbers and he always had to be a cop.

Stearns County is using thermal imaging in squad cars. I was joined by Stearns County Sheriff Steve Soyka to talk about this. He says they've added this technology within the last two years and recently used this to find and arrest a burglary suspect in the Albany area.

Stearns County is in need of more jail space. Stearns County Sheriff Steve Soyka joined me on WJON. He says they have 130 inmates currently in the Stearns County Jail with another 20 housed in another neighboring county jail because they are beyond capacity here.