Firefighter Faces Additional Charges in Deadly MN Apparatus Crash

A Michigan firefighter faces new charges following a crash in Minnesota that killed two firefighters last summer.

Michael Allen Johnson was driving the Beartown firefighter transport vehicle to the Box Canyon wildfire in Utah when the vehicle left the road and crashed in Blaine, MN.

Johnson was first charged with two counts of criminal vehicular homicide and now faces 10 felony counts based on the findings of a toxicology report, according to ABC10UP.com. 

The report showed that Johnson had benzoylecgonine and cocaine in his system and he later admitted to using cocaine three days before the crash, which caused the fire apparatus to rollover.

Johnson is also charged with two counts of criminal vehicular homicide – negligence, with a schedule one or two controlled substance present and six counts of operating a vehicle causing great bodily harm with a schedule controlled substance present. 

Firefighters Alan Schwartz, 25, and James Shelifoe Jr., 23 were killed in the Aug. 27 crash that left several others injured. 

Beartown firefighters are a Type 2 wildland handcrew managed by the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community and the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the Upper Peninsula community of Baraga.