The man was taken by ambulance to UnityPoint Health — Trinity Regional Medical Center to be checked out. He was expected to be booked into the Webster County Jail Saturday evening. The police officers, Lt. Dennis Quinn and Patrol Officer Matt Weir, were uninjured.

Quinn identified the man who was arrested as Steve Roe, of Fort Dodge. He said there was a warrant for Roe’s arrest on a charge of violation of probation.

The situation that ended up with Roe and the officers in the river began at about 4:45 p.m. Quinn said police received a report that Roe was at 104 K St. He said there is a court order called a no-contact order that prohibits Roe from being at that location.

A police officer went to 104 K St. and found Roe there. Roe ran away from the officer, went down the nearby riverbank and jumped into the water.

-Messenger photo by Bill Shea Fort Dodge Patrol Officer Matt Weir, front, and police Lt. Dennis Quinn, back, prepare to remove Steve Roe from a Fire Department boat late Saturday afternoon. Roe had tried to evade the police, who had a warrant for his arrest on a charge of violation of probation, by swimming in the Des Moines River. Weir and Quinn jumped in the water to get Roe. Firefighter Chuck DeBaun is seated in the boat.

Quinn said Roe was swimming close to the riverbank and hiding behind the branches that extend over the water.

The Fort Dodge Fire Department was called to bring a boat to the river. The boat was launched from a ramp at the former Sunkissed Meadows Golf Course. Police officers joined firefighters in the boat.

Roe was spotted in the water and the boat approached him.

”We told him to just come out,” Quinn said. ”We told him repeatedly to come out because we weren’t going away.”

He said Roe made it clear that he would not get out of the water, so he and Weir went in.

”This was the only way to bring an end to it,” Quinn said.

He said the water was so deep at the point where he and Weir jumped in that neither of them could touch the bottom of the river. Both officers were wearing life vests.

After the officers grabbed Roe and handcuffed him, he was brought to the west bank of the river. Roe was placed into the boat there, The boat then returned to the ramp on the east side of the river, where he was loaded into a Fire Department ambulance.

Quinn said he believed Roe would be charged with violating a no-contact order and violation of probation.

Webster County sheriff’s deputies and an Iowa Department of Natural Resources officer assisted city police and firefighters.