State Patrol recounts deadly weekend on Minn. roads
Eight people died on Minnesota roads this weekend, and Sunday was the deadliest day of the year so far, according to the Minnesota State Patrol.
Three people died Sunday when a minivan rolled over on Interstate 94. Two others died in crashes in Shoreview and Brooklyn Park.
"When you look at the crashes and the factors involved, it almost always comes down to speed, seatbelts, inattention and impairment," said State Patrol spokesman Eric Roeske. "I'm not trying to blame the people involved that lost their lives, but it's a fact that you can't ignore."
This morning at 1 a.m., a 23-year-old woman died in a single-vehicle accident in Brooklyn Center when she ran off the road and hit a tree.
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A motorcyclist died at about 6:30 p.m. on Sunday, when authorities said he ran a red light on Brooklyn Boulevard at Welcome Avenue. The motorcylist, 23-year-old Tyron Somaiah, of Crystal, was spotted by a state trooper on I-94 going an estimated 130 miles an hour through evening traffic in Minneapolis. Troopers pursued the driver, who turned onto I-694 and then got off the freeway at Brooklyn Boulevard. Officers said he went through at least one red light before crashing into another car crossing the road in front of him.
A 55-year-old Arden Hills woman was struck and killed Sunday just after 3 p.m. as she was walking near the intersection of Lexington Avenue and Victoria Street. The Ramsey County Sheriff's office and the State Patrol are still investigating that crash.
On Sunday at 1 p.m., three people were killed and five injured in a three-car crash that caused a Toyota Sienna van to roll over as it was headed north on Interstate 94 near 49th Avenue, north of downtown Minneapolis. Witnesses said several people were ejected from the vehicle when it overturned.
"The preliminary information is all the vehicles were traveling northbound on 94," said Roeske, the State Patrol spokesman. "For whatever reason there was contact between two of the vehicles. One of them goes off the road up onto the frontage road. The other one went on the shoulder and kind of came back onto the freeway, made contact with the van, which sent the van into the median barrier, and then the van rolled."
Roeske said that the dead included two women, 44 and 80, and a 16-year-old boy. Five people were injured, including Akinbowale Barbington, 15; Oluremi Ayodele Ogundare, 61; Fisayo Abigail Barbington, 15; Faith Barbington, 12; and Toby Barbington, 5. Three of those people are listed in critical condition and another in serious condition at North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale.
Investigators are still looking into the crash, but Roeske said preliminary evidence indicates that at least some of the van's occupants either weren't wearing seatbelts or hadn't fastened them properly.
Two people were killed on Minnesota roads on Saturday. A 32-year-old man was killed in a two-vehicle crash at a rural intersection east of Rochester just after noon on Saturday. The weekend's first fatality happened Saturday morning, when 66-year-old Marvin Jech, of Rochester, was killed in a collision with a pickup truck just outside Eyota, east of Rochester. Three people from Iowa in the truck were not hurt.
