Watonwan County Sheriff's Office

Every 9-1-1 call in Watonwan County, Minnesota comes into the sheriff's Communications Center in St. James, which dispatches the sheriff's deputies, the St. James and Madelia police departments, fire departments from Butterfield, LaSalle, Lewisville, Odin and Ormsby, and the St. James, Madelia and Lewisville ambulance services. The center is also the county's severe weather warning point, activating sirens in St. James, Darfur, Madelia, Butterfield and Odin and testing them on the first Wednesday of each month, and it takes after-hours calls for the City of St. James light, street, water and wastewater departments and county Human Services. On the road, K9 Maya works with deputies wearing bullet- and stab-protective armor donated by the nonprofit Vested Interest in K9s and embroidered in memory of Roseville's K9 Major. The office pursues state snowmobile and off-highway vehicle safety enforcement grants and runs a prescription drug take-back program. Its civil process work covers orders, notices, subpoenas and summonses as well as writs of execution and mortgage foreclosure and mechanic's lien sales, and the county jail provides secure detention while working with the courts and social service agencies.