Previous citation in deadly windshield crash

OWATONNA, Minn. (AP) — The truck driver who lost a landscape block and caused a deadly highway crash was fined last year for failing to secure his load.

Seventeen-year-old Steven Batt of Waseca was killed Tuesday when the cement block bounced on Highway 14 and smashed through the windshield of a van traveling in the opposite direction. Batt was a front seat passenger in the van.

The State Patrol says the truck driver, who works for North Star Stone and Masonry, paid a $300 fine in Dakota County District Court last December after he was cited for failing to secure his load.

The St. Paul Pioneer Press reports in that incident, a cement block bounced off his truck on Interstate 35W in Burnsville, but no one was injured.

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