Lakeville Man Charged with Car-Smashing Spree

A Lakeville man has been charged with smashing into a parked car outside a Lakeville bar last weekend, then ramming a when officers showed up at his apartment complex to arrest him.

Domi Moses, 22, is charged with first-degree criminal damage to property, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. 

Moses is also charged with two counts of obstructing the legal process, each of which carries a maximum penalty of a year in jail and a $3,000 fine, and two misdemeanors: leaving the scene of an accident involving an unattended vehicle and failure to notify an owner of property damage or an accident, each of which has a maximum penalty of 90 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Moses remains in the Dakota County Jail on a $20,000 fine. An omnibus hearing in his case is scheduled Sept. 24 in Dakota County District Court in Hastings.

According to the criminal complaint, Lakeville police were called to at about 1 a.m. June 15 on a report of a hit-and-run accident in the bar’s parking lot. 

Officers spoke to a woman in the bar who said a bar patron had come inside and told her that someone driving a Chevrolet Blazer had hit her car in the parking lot. The patron provided the Blazer’s license number.

As an officer was taking the victim’s report, other officers were called to an apartment complex 16000 block of Joplin Avenue on a report of a suspicious vehicle. The caller described the vehicle as a Blazer with the same license number as the one that hit the car in Babe’s parking lot.

As an officer turned into the apartment complex’s parking lot, he saw the Blazer driving through the lot. The officer turned on his emergency lights and drove toward the Blazer, stopping about 12 feet in front of it.

As the officer began getting out of the squad car, the Blazer suddenly drove forward, ramming the squad car. The driver of the Blazer -- later identified as Moses -- continued trying to drive forward, but was stopped by the squad car’s push bumpers.

The officer got out of the squad car and ordered Moses to get out, but he continued trying to drive forward, according to the complaint. Police removed Moses from the Blazer, which was covered with tree branches and leaves, and noticed a strong smell of alcohol on his breath.

Minutes later, officers found a damaged fence behind the apartment complex, and determined that someone had driven through the fence and into some trees.