Woman charged with fleeing troopers, crashing near West St. Paul home
A 31-year-old woman is accused of driving under the influence when she led troopers on a chase early Thursday morning and crashed just feet away from a West St. Paul home.
According to the criminal complaint, a trooper noticed a 2011 BMW speeding at 97 mph on Interstate 94 near Pascal Street around 1:30 a.m. When the trooper activated their emergency lights, the BMW slowed to 60 mph and nearly struck a concrete median.
The BMW then exited onto Butler Avenue, and the trooper decided to stop the pursuit, court documents say. Eventually the driver sideswiped a parked car and came to a halt in the front yard of a home on the 800 block of Cherokee Avenue.
The driver was arrested at the scene, and kept saying she was "running from the cartel," documents say. Officials also found a half-empty bottle of Hennessy on the passenger floorboard of the BMW.
At the hospital, the woman's preliminary breath test sample registered a 0.18. She said "I'm under the influence regardless, but I'll blow it," according to the charges.
She is charged with fleeing a peace officer in a motor vehicle and driving under the influence.
The woman had a history of driving under the influence, documents say. Her license had been revoked because of two previous charges: refusing to take a DWI test in September of 2023 and allegedly driving with a 0.223 BAC in November of 2023.
