A 21-year-old man was driving with a suspended license and may have been under the influence of drugs when he went through a red light before he struck and killed a woman on her motorized scooter in a north Minneapolis crosswalk, according to a criminal complaint filed Thursday.
Cameron M. Bendson, of Minneapolis, was charged in Hennepin County District Court with criminal vehicular homicide in connection with the collision Monday afternoon at West Broadway and N. Aldrich avenues.
While release of the victim's name was pending Thursday afternoon from the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Office, her family has identified her as 70-year-old Rosie Means, who lived near the intersection where she was run over. A news conference and prayer vigil in Means' honor is planned for 4:30 p.m. Friday.
Bendson remains jailed in lieu of $150,000 bail ahead of a court appearance Friday afternoon. Court records do not list an attorney for him.
The state Department of Public Safety said that Bendson's license has been suspended for the past six months.
Court records show that in slightly more than three years Bendson has been convicted three times for theft, twice for motor vehicle registration violations, and once each for drug possession, fleeing police, indecent exposure and driving after his license was revoked.
According to the complaint:
Police officers were sent to the intersection about 2:25 p.m. and saw a woman unconscious in the middle of the street. Several people yelled that a white Jeep ran a red light, hit the woman and drove off.
City street surveillance video backed up the witnesses' accounts and showed the Jeep heading west, going through the red light and hitting the scooter.
"The force of the collision destroys the motorized scooter and throws [the woman] across the intersection to the other side of Broadway Avenue," the complaint read.
The woman was taken by emergency responders to North Memorial Health Hospital and was pronounced dead.
Police learned that law enforcement was alerted the day before to Bendson being high on methamphetamine while driving a white Jeep. Bendson is "a known methamphetamine user," the complaint continued.
About 1:45 a.m. Tuesday, the State Patrol located the Jeep, crashed and abandoned in the median of Hwy. 100 in Brooklyn Center. "It appeared … the interior of the vehicle had been set on fire," according to the complaint.
Around noon the same day, police in St. Anthony were called about a suspicious person in an alley behind a business on Pentagon Drive. Officers responded, located Bendson sitting in a stolen vehicle and arrested him.
Witnesses told police that Bendson once worked at the business and appeared to be high when he showed up in the alley.
Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482
