Crime and Justice

Lots of drunk driving, but little outrage as the toll mounts in Minnesota

Bob CollinsBob Collins Sep 26, 2017
23

It’s been a big week for drunks on the highway. Every week is in Minnesota and many other locations where the slaughter of innocent people hardly registers a blip anymore.

Let’s review the toll so far and ask ourselves why an actual crisis never seems to rise above the noise of others.

This morning, a driver hit two teens in a car and killed them both in Minneapolis. The driver was going the wrong way on I-94. Police suspect he was under the influence.

They were just kids.

A 27-year-old man was charged today in Clearwater County District Court. Authorities say Christopher K. Baumann, of Bemidji, was very drunk — .023 — when he hit an Amish buggy on Saturday night in Leon Township.

“Let’s just get to the point. Whatever you’ve got to do, breathalyzer, whatever,” he said to the police who found him a half mile beyond where the crash occurred.

Elsie Yoder, 23, of Clearbrook, Minn., is dead. Her brother is in the hospital. The horse was put down at the scene.

Things could have turned out much worse for a Rochester woman who was arrested Saturday after an off-duty officer saw Tasha Schleiche,40, weaving on Highway 52 and hitting a guardrail. KAAL reports she pulled over to the shoulder at an exit and when police arrived, she was breastfeeding an infant. Four other kids under the age of 10 were in the car. They’ve been turned over to child protection, the Star Tribune reports, although there’s no word on the fate of five other kids at home.

The Strib says she’s had three drunken driving convictions in the past 10 years, two in Wisconsin in 2008 and another in Kentucky in 2009.

She doesn’t have a valid driver’s license.

Last Friday, Israel Delos Santos, 30, pleaded guilty to drunk driving in a crash that killed Krista Sandstrom, 47, of St. Paul in June. She was on her way to give a singing lesson. He was doing 70 on a Minneapolis street when he ran a red light.

He’s got two convictions for drunken driving on a lengthy record and reportedly will get a 10-year sentence.

He told authorities he was too drunk to remember anything about the crash.