Stillwater police accuse a 25-year-old Lakeland man of crashing into his grandmother’s house while driving drunk. Authorities say that after celebrating St. Patrick’s Day with his uncle and a friend at a Stillwater establishment, the Lakeland man agreed to give his uncle a ride home.
Law enforcement says that the driver apparently tried to make a left hand turn in front of his grandmother’s home, but instead hit the curb, a pole, and continued up an embankment into his grandmother’s yard before coming to a stop on the front step of the house. Stillwater Police arrested the man after the alleged incident on suspicion of gross misdemeanor drunk driving.
Police say that the 25-year-old, who is accused of driving at the time of the incident, submitted to an Intoxilyzer breath test and law enforcement claims the machine returned a result of 0.27 percent, in excess of the 0.08 reading that Minnesota law presumes impairment. The presumption of impairment will now be used against the accused in the DWI case.
Authorities say that no one was injured in the incident.
It is important to note that any challenge to a Minnesota DWI license revocation is a separate matter from the criminal DWI charges. License revocations under Minnesota’s implied consent law occur outside any criminal proceeding and challenges to the revocation must be perfected within 30 days. Many Minnesota drivers wait too long to file a challenge to the revocation, and lose the right to contest the loss of license that is associated with a DWI arrest.
Source: Stillwater Patch, “Stillwater Police: Man’s St. Patrick’s Day Party Comes to an End at Grandma’s House,” Shawn Hogendorf, March 20, 2012
