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Crime & Safety

Man Charged With Driving a Car into an Oakdale Home

A Minneapolis man allegedly drove his SUV into a home in anger, causing structural damage to the Gershwin Avenue house.

A Minneapolis man was charged with criminal property damage after allegedly running his SUV into an Oakdale home in February, and then driving off.

James M. Wirtz, 26, allegedly left the house angry and then rammed into it with his car, pushing in the frame of the home and causing the sheetrock on an inside wall to break, according to the Washington County District Court Complaint.

According to the criminal complaint:

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Police were called to the 900 block of Gershwin Avenue at about 3 a.m. Feb. 11 on a report that a car had hit a house. When police got to the scene, they were told that Wirtz fled in a blue Chevy Suburban. One of the responding officers remembered seeing a blue Suburban at the gas station on 10th Street and Geneva Avenue, and so he headed to the station.

The SUV was still there, and Wirtz walked up to the squad car shortly after the officer arrived. He had a cut on his forehead and blood in his left ear. He told the officer that he had just been assaulted by multiple people at his cousin’s house.

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Witnesses at the home told a different story. The officer at the home observed that there were about seven people there who had all been drinking. Witnesses said they had been at a bar earlier with Wirtz, and when they returned home he became obnoxious and started wrestling with people. One witness said Wirtz was angry, and that he drove his truck into the house. The officer saw that a wall inside the home was buckled and appeared to have structural damage. Another witness said after she heard the crash, she looked out the window, saw Wirtz back into a parked car, hit some trees and flee the scene. Another witness who was outside at the time of the crash said he had to jump out of the way of Wirtz’ car to avoid being hit.

He, “floored it past me,” the witness told police.

The officer on the scene found a piece of a headlight, which appeared to come from the SUV Wirtz was driving. The vehicle had a large dent on the passenger side, the entire bumper was dented down, the passenger side headlight was dangling and the rear bumper was dented down, an officer observed.

The officer at the gas station had Wirtz take a preliminary breath test, which showed his blood alcohol content was .17, the complaint says.

Wirtz was arrested for DWI, and was also charged with first-degree property damage. He faces a maximum sentence of one year in prison and $3,000 in fines for the DWI charge, and five years in prison and $10,000 in fines for the property damage charge.

His initial appearance in court is scheduled April 25.

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