Christopher Boone Crimmins, 34, was charged with manslaughter after a Thursday workplace incident in Apple Valley ended with Tyler Anthony Lynch dead on the ground. Lynch was 26. Police said the two men were on the job when a hydraulic grapple crushed Lynch's head.
The charge turns a fatal accident into a criminal case, and it does so on the same day the incident unfolded. Crimmins was operating machinery on the back of a truck while Lynch was on the ground cleaning up branches, and officers later found Lynch lying there with a significant amount of blood around him and major trauma to his head. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
That detail matters because the machinery at the center of the case was not being used in a simple, stationary way. Authorities said Crimmins was operating a boom, a movable mechanical arm attached to a truck, when the grapple came into play. The Dakota County Attorney's Office said the complaint treats the death as manslaughter after a worksite sequence that ended with the grapple closing on Lynch's head.
The criminal complaint adds a sharper, harder edge to what began as job-site horseplay. It said Crimmins and Lynch were f—ing around and noticed the sunlight casting shadows of both the grapple and Lynch on the street. Crimmins then maneuvered the grapple so its shadow appeared to grab Lynch's shadow, but he did not realize the actual grapple was moving toward Lynch's head. The Dakota County Attorney's Office said he was not monitoring either the grapple itself or Lynch when he opened and closed the grapple and crushed Lynch's head.
A witness described the grapple as appearing to hit or pinch Lynch's head as it approached him, and officers observed blood on the grapple directly above Lynch. That is the part of the case that makes the charge more than a workplace tragedy: the allegation is not just that the wrong equipment was used, but that a brief moment of play ended with deadly movement from the machine itself.
The remaining question is procedural, not factual. The complaint has been filed, but the public record provided here does not say which specific manslaughter count applies or whether Crimmins has entered a plea. What is clear is that Dakota County has already moved the case from a fatal on-the-job accident into court, and the next step will determine how far the criminal case goes from there.
