![Friend: Minnesota Cop-Killing Suspect ‘Not a Monster’](http://townsquare.media/site/67/files/2012/11/ryan_larson_300x200_stearns.jpg?w=980&q=75)
Friend: Minnesota Cop-Killing Suspect ‘Not a Monster’
COLD SPRING (AP) -- A friend of the man accused of gunning down a central Minnesota police officer says the suspect is "not a monster."
Jeff Scoles Jr. of Sartell says suspect Ryan Michael Larson "was a normal person." Scoles finds it hard to believe Larson is suspected of killing Cold Spring police Officer Tom Decker.
Scoles owns a bar in Cold Spring. He says Larson lived the past two years in an apartment above the bar and was a bartender at Scoles' other bar in Sartell.
Scoles says Larson was doing his homework at the Sartell bar Thursday and was in a "good mood" when he left.
That night, Decker was responding to a report of a suicidal man when he was shot twice in downtown Cold Spring. Larson is in jail.
(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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