Star Tribune
Teen driver’s ‘drifting’ on gravel Scott County road flung passenger to his death
A teenager has been charged with crashing and killing one of his three 16-year-old passengers while doing thrill-seeking “drifts” in a SUV, its windows and doors stripped off, on a Scott County gravel road at dusk on a late spring evening.
Juan E. Perez, 18, of Jordan, was charged in a juvenile petition in District Court last week with criminal vehicular homicide in connection with Benjamin Camacho, 16, suffering numerous fatal injuries on May 25 in the 18000 block of Valley View Drive in Sand Creek Township.
Perez, who was 17 at the time of the crash, is scheduled to be booked into custody on Feb. 1 and appear in court that day for a hearing addressing the prosecution’s effort to have him tried in adult court. A message was left Tuesday with his attorney seeking a response to the allegations.
Camacho attended Jordan High School, where Principal Jeff Vizenor said in a note to district families shortly after the the junior died that “Ben was a student that brought energy and a smile through the hallways. He was growing into a great young man and will be missed.”
According to the petition, based in part on law enforcement interviews with the driver and his passengers:
Emergency responders arrived about 8:40 p.m. to find a Jeep Wrangler, with its doors and windows taken off, on its side in a ditch. Close by was Camacho suffering from significant head injuries. Medical personnel declared him dead at the scene. Perez and his other two passengers, both 16, survived their injuries.
Perez that he lost control of the SUV. He also shared that he didn’t have a license to drive.
The State Department of Public Safety said Tuesday that Perez had an instruction permit at the time of the crash, which allowed him to drive but only when an adult with a driver’s license is in the front passenger seat.
One passenger added that the four of them had been driving around in the area drifting — created when a driver oversteers and sends the vehicle sideways — for about 50 minutes.
At one point, the passenger said he felt what Perez was doing was “kind of sketch” and told Perez to “down it a bit.” However, Perez ignored his friend’s fear that the stunt was getting out of control.
While heading south on a gravel stretch of Valley View Drive, Perez crossed railroad tracks, drifted yet again, hit the anchor cable to a utility pole and landed in a ditch.
The friend said Perez crashed because he overcorrected his drift and “could feel the rear of the Jeep swing out. He recalled looking over as the SUV swerved about and seeing an unbelted Camacho sliding around.
A State Patrol investigation determined that Perez was traveling between 32 and 35 miles per hour at the time. The posted limit is 30.
The investigation also found that the emergency brake on the damaged SUV was engaged. “It is common to use the emergency brake when actively drifting a vehicle,” the petition read.
One day after the crash, Sheriff Luke Hennen, said, “I urge parents to have open and honest conversations with their teens about the importance of driving safely and always wearing seatbelts.”
Transforming the heart of both downtowns, which have much larger buildings than old warehouses, is going to take a lot more money, creativity and time. Josh Talberg, managing director at downtown Minneapolis brokerage JLL, said with no major apartment buildings on the drawing board in either downtown, the fleet of empty office buildings present a golden opportunity to create more housing and lead both cities in a new direction.
“You can can certainly see the fundamentals improving, and you can feel that vibrancy, and that’s ultimately the foundation that’s needed to get investors to reinvest in the city,” he said. “But it’s not as if these 18-wheelers can turn on a dime.”
The Minnesota Department of Transportation closed part of a state highway Wednesday evening near Austin because of a “major hazardous materials release” in the area.
Hwy. 56 from Hayfield to Waltham, a stretch covering about five miles, was closed in both directions and drivers were directed to follow a detour to Blooming Prairie on U.S. Hwy. 218.
No information on the hazardous materials released was immediately available.
A federal judge dismissed a civil lawsuit against Minnesota state trooper Ryan Londregan in the shooting death of Ricky Cobb II during a 2023 traffic stop.
The decision is the latest development in a case that has drawn heated debate over excessive use of force by law enforcement. Criminal charges against Londregan were dismissed by Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty in June, saying the prosecution didn’t have the evidence to proceed with a case.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Nancy E. Brasel granted Londregan’s motion to dismiss the civil suit, arguing he acted reasonably when he opened fire as Cobb’s vehicle lurched forward with another state trooper partly inside.
Londregan’s attorney Chris Madelsaid Wednesday that it’s been a “long, grueling journey to justice. Ryan Londregan has finally arrived.”
On July 31, 2023, the two troopers pulled over Cobb, 33, on Interstate 94 in north Minneapolis for driving without taillights and later learned he was wanted for violating a felony domestic no-contact order. Cobb refused commands to exit the car.
With Seide partly inside the car while trying to unbuckle Cobb’s seatbelt, the car moved forward. Londregan then opened fire, hitting Cobb twice.
In her decision, Brasel said the troopers were mandated by state law to make an arrest given Cobb’s domestic no-contact order violation. She said it was objectively reasonable for Londregan to believe Seide was in immediate danger as the car moved forward on a busy highway, which would make his use of force reasonable.
