Blog
With the State Fair knocking on the door, most Twin Cities residents must know that Labor Day is just around the corner. Holiday weekends generally bring out extra patrols throughout the state as police promote a crackdown on drunk driving offenses.
In a recent story coming out of Anoka County, a 59-year-old man from Plymouth has been arrested and charged with stealing more than $100,000 from a Blaine car dealership. He faces one charge of theft by swindle and could spend up to 20 years in prison if convicted. He may also be ordered to pay $100,000 in fines, too.
For a long time many people in Minneapolis-St. Paul who were arrested and charged with federal drug crimes feared the lengthy, draconian prison sentences that accompanied those charges. The country’s war on drugs has been severe, sending people who were never violent and had very little criminal background away for decades in prison. There has been some pushback over lengthy mandatory prison sentences, however, and now Attorney General Eric Holder, on behalf of the Obama Administration, is announcing a new plan to combat these punishments.
When Minnesotans are flying out of the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, they know they are in for long lines, intrusive body scans and potentially a pat down. While many of us feel frustrated by the amount of security at airports these days, most of us know that it is not a good idea to make a joke about a bomb. Unfortunately, one young man, probably overwhelmed by all of the security, told a Transportation Security Administration agent that he had a bomb in his pocket.
Many Minnesotans may recognize that a charge for driving while impaired will potentially have a significant impact of the person’s ability to drive. While a person accused of drunk driving can expect their driving privilege to be revoked, the license revocation may be challenged in a civil hearing apart from the DWI criminal case, if the driver timely files a legal challenge to the revocation.
Law enforcement responded to a report of a boat accident in northern Minnesota Tuesday afternoon around 4:00 p.m. A woman apparently fell from the front of the boat. Authorities say that after she fell into the water the propeller struck her–she suffered injuries to her leg and shoulder. The woman needed surgery to repair a roughly foot-long cut on her thigh.
Dakota County prosecutors accuse an Apple Valley woman of criminal vehicular homicide after a fatal car and motorcycle accident claimed the life of a Burnsville man last week. Police claim that the Burnsville, Minnesota, man was riding his motorcycle on 160th Street in Apple Valley.
There are likely many people in St. Paul who have heard the story of a now-25-year-old man who nearly died while in a federal Drug Enforcement Administration cell. The young man had been arrested as part of a drug raid and was questioned before an officer working with the DEA told him he was not going to be charged. The officer put him in a 5-by-10-foot holding cell, assuring him that he would only be a minute. Instead, the young man spent the next 4 1/2 days in the cell and nearly died.