Former Rochester Police officer Joshua Laber has been through the revolving door at the local jail a few times in recent years. His most recent troubles began in March of 2020 when he was charged for having a "significant relationship" with a minor under the age of 16 until she told police about it. She also said that Laber put a camera in the bathroom when she was showing, so investigators got a warrant for his computer which contained child pornography. He was released on a $40,000 unconditional bail (https://kttc.com/2020/03/10/former-rpd-officer-charged-with-child-sex-crimes/). Then in May of this year he was charged with witness tampering for trying to get his victim to change her story (https://krocnews.com/rochester-man-facing-tampering-charges-in-sex-abuse-case/). He was released on $20,000 bail. This past weekend he was arrested for drunk driving, obstruction of justice, and assaulting a police officer after crashing his vehicle, running away, leading officers on a short foot pursuit, and kicking an arresting officer before blowing a .19.
According to the Olmsted County website, Laber is currently incarcerated pending arraignment on his new charges at the Olmsted County Adult Detention Center (https://www.olmstedcounty.gov/residents/public-safety-law-enforcement/active-warrants/who-is-in-custody). We hope that the judge will not grant bail so easily this time. We would say we were shocked to see an accused child molester like Laber make bail so easily and get so many second chances, but it happens all the time, especially when the accused is a current or former police officer. Even when a cop leaves the force he is still a part of that fraternity.
Laber resigned from the Rochester Police Department for unknown reasons in 2015. In 2017, Laber was convicted of violating a domestic abuse protective order in Olmsted County (case number 55CR168775).
According to public records, Joshua Paul Laber is a 44 year old resident of Rochester, Minnesota. His last known home address is 6664 Clarkia Drive NW. We are exempting Laber from our usual courtesy of censoring home addresses of police officers because he is charged with sex crimes involving a minor. That enough is enough for us to post a home address, but on top of that he has demonstrated himself to be a danger to his victim as well as the community while on bail. We hope that by posting his address that parents will know to keep their kids away from that location and the rest of the community will exercise caution in the area. Please do not use this information for any unlawful purpose.