Cop killer up for parole again

A Dodge County cop killer will be going in front of a parole board for the fifth time next month.

Andrew Salinas will appear before the parole board seeking to get released from prison on April 11. For the first time ever, the parole hearing will be open to the public.

Salinas was convicted and sentenced in the 1988 murder of Claremont police chief Greg Lange, 39. At the time, Salinas was given a life sentence. However, he was sentenced prior to the law changing a few years later that added “without a chance of parole” to the life sentence.

In 2020, Salinas was moved from a high security prison to medium security. He is currently serving his sentence at the state correctional facility in Lino Lakes. The DOC also set him up on a three-year review plan instead of every eight years.

After the parole decision in 2020 to move Salinas, the Minnesota Department of Corrections assured Lange’s widow, Sue, that they were not preparing him to be released. “It’s not in the cards to release him,” Sue Lange said in 2020.

Sheriff Scott Rose has been a strong advocate of keeping Salinas locked up in prison. “He chose to beat Greg. He chose to shoot Greg. He also chose to shoot Greg a second time,” Rose said. “Andrew didn’t have to take that last shot—he took it because he wanted Greg dead,” he added.

Rose pointed out how Salinas’ actions sentenced Lange’s wife to a life without her husband and their 12-year-old son to life without a father. “In the interest of public safety, I again respectfully ask that you keep (Salinas) behind bars for the entirety of his life sentence,” Rose said. “Justice demands that he spend every remaining day of his life in prison.”

Citizens can submit letters to the DOC by Friday, March 21. They can be sent by mail to MN Department of Corrections, Attention: Aubrey Steckelberg, 1450 Energy Park Dr., Suite 200, St. Paul, MN 55108 or email at paroleinputpublic.hru.doc@state.mn.us.

The review hearing is led by Corrections Commissioner Paul Schnell.