Star Tribune
Woman spared prison for South St. Paul crash after bar-hopping that killed ex-husband
A judge Tuesday spared a prison sentence for a woman who admitted that she spent the day bar-hopping before getting behind the wheel drunk and causing a fatal head-on crash in South St. Paul that killed her ex-husband, who was sitting next to her.
Bobbie Jo Puttbrese, 53, of North St. Paul, was sentenced in Dakota County District Court after pleading guilty in October to one count of criminal vehicular homicide and two counts of criminal vehicular operation in connection with the collision on June 5 that killed 60-year-old Paul E. Craven of West St. Paul.
A police officer gave Puttbrese a preliminary breath test at the scene, and her blood alcohol content was measured at 0.201%, more than twice the legal limit for driving in Minnesota, the criminal complaint said. The complaint noted that Puttbrese has two convictions for drunken driving, one in 1993 and the other in 2000.
Judge Stacey Green chose not to impose a presumptive sentence of four years and instead put Puttbrese on probation for five years. According to the terms of her probation, she must abstain from using alcohol, illicit drugs and THC, submit to random substance testing and comply with mental health directives.
Green explained in a departure report that her sentence fell below state guidelines because, among numerous reasons, Puttbrese has expressed remorse and has undergone successful chemical dependency and mental health treatment.
In a statement released after sentencing, County Attorney Kathy Keena said, “I’m disappointed with the court’s downward dispositional departure decision, given [Puttbrese’s] actions in this case.”
Last month, defense attorney Joshua Dingel told the court in writing that his client has maintained sobriety and accepts responsibility for Craven’s death.
“I feel bad that I ever got behind the wheel to drink and drive,” read a quote from Puttbrese in the filing. “I loved him, and I am sorry that I hit somebody and hurt someone. … I’m never going to drink again.”
According to the charges:
Puttbrese was heading south on Concord Street about 3:20 p.m. when she crossed into the northbound lane and hit a pickup truck head-on. Emergency responders took Craven to Regions Hospital, where he died. A 64-year-old passenger in Puttbrese’s van went to the same hospital with spinal fractures and broken bones in his chest.
The 55-year-old pickup driver, less seriously injured, told police he saw Puttbrese’s southbound van suddenly cross into his lane and hit him head-on. Surveillance video from a nearby business showed the pickup driver trying to avoid the collision.
An officer saw Puttbrese sitting on a sidewalk nearby. Her speech was slurred and her eyes were watery. She had difficulty responding when the officer asked for her phone and address. Puttbrese said “she had been drinking at several bars today [and] stated she was drunk,” the charges read.
“Under the Biden-Harris Administration, more than 11,000 bridges in communities across America are finally getting the repairs they’ve long needed with funding from our infrastructure law,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, in a news release. He said the bridge repairs ensure “people and goods can get where they need to go, safely and efficiently.”
A 19-year-old driver trying to get around slower vehicles collided head-on with an SUV in Wright County and killed one person and injured several others, officials said Thursday.
SUV passenger Janice Evelyn Johnson, 92, of Arden Hills, died Monday at HCMC from injuries she suffered in the collision on Oct. 22 in Monticello Township on County Road 37 near County Road 12, the Sheriff’s Office said in a search warrant affidavit filed in Hennepin County District Court.
The driver and two other people in the SUV survived their injuries, according to the affidavit, which the Sheriff’s Office filed to collect Johnson’s medical records at HCMC as part of its investigation.
According to the affidavit:
Deputies arrived at the crash scene and spoke with the car’s driver, Christian Kabunangu, of Brooklyn Park, who said he was heading west on County Road 37 and found himself behind two vehicles traveling below the speed limit.
“He was late for work, so he decided to pass them,” the affidavit read. Kabunangu said he saw the oncoming SUV and estimated it was about a half-mile down the road.
As he attempted to pass one of the slower vehicles, he explained, the other driver “sped up, preventing him from getting back into the westbound lane,” the filing continued.
As the Honda drew near, he swerved to the left, but the SUV did the same and they collided.
Star Tribune
University of Minnesota researchers find that native plants can beat invasive buckthorn on their own turf.
If the invasive buckthorn that is strangling the life out of Minnesota’s forest floor has a weakness, it is right now, in the shortening daylight of the late fall.
With a little help and planning, certain native plants have the best chance of beating buckthorn back and helping to eradicate it from the woods, according to new research from the University of Minnesota.
The sprawling bush has been one of the most formidable invasive species to take root in Minnesota since it was brought from Europe in the mid-1800s. It was prized as an ornamental privacy hedge. All the attributes that make buckthorn good at that job — dense thick leaves that stay late into the fall, toughness and resilience to damage and pruning, unappealing taste to wildlife and herbivores — have allowed it to thrive in the wild.
It grows fast and thick, out-competing the vast majority of native plants and shrubs for sunlight and then starving them under its shade. It creates damaging feedback loops, providing ideal habitat and calcium-rich food for invasive earthworms, which in turn kill off and uproot native plants. That leaves even less competition for buckthorn to take root, said Mike Schuster, a researcher for the university’s Department of Forest Resources.
When it takes over a natural area, buckthorn creates a “green desert,” Schuster said. “All that’s left is just a perpetual hedge, with little biodiversity.”
Since the 1990s, when the spread became impossible to ignore, Minnesota foresters, park managers and cities have spent millions of dollars a year trying to beat it back. They’ve used chainsaws and trimmers, poisons and herbicides, and even goats for hire. The buckthorn almost always grows back within a few years.
It’s been so pervasive that a conventional wisdom formed that buckthorn seeds could survive dormant in the soil for up to six years. That thought has led to a sort of fatalism: even if the plant were entirely removed from a property there would be a looming threat that it would sprout back, Schuster said.
But there is nothing special about buckthorn seeds. They only survive for a year or two.
