At least there was no chance of getting a speeding ticket.
A 15-year-old boy fired up a front-end loader under cover of darkness in St. Paul and lumbered along city streets on a joy ride spanning at least 22 miles and nearly four hours through the University of Minnesota, downtown Minneapolis and along Lake Street before crashing into a Hopkins auto dealership building.
"We suspect that his intent was to steal a car by getting in the business for the keys," said Hopkins Police Sgt. Michael Glassberg of the teen's crash landing before his arrest. "It's not every day that you see someone use a front-end loader to go through the front of the business."
A GPS device in the construction equipment gave police an accurate depiction of the less-than-direct route the boy took once he climbed aboard about 1 a.m. Monday and departed from a recycling business along a sliver of E. Minnehaha Avenue just northwest of the Interstate 35E exit to Pennsylvania Avenue.
Maximum speed for the 9-ton John Deere 544 is 10.7 miles per hour.
Once he started the yellow vehicle — no key required — the boy and his oversized toy rolled west and onto the U campus, then into downtown Minneapolis and along southbound Nicollet Avenue before heading west past Lake Calhoun and into Hopkins.
He crashed into the left side of the modest offices of Metro Motorcars on Excelsior Boulevard, across the street from the Blake School. The impact set off a burglar alarm about 4:50 a.m. and alerted police, who arrived and discovered "significant damage to the front of the building," Glassberg said.
The teen ran to the back of the building and was quickly apprehended. The boy came out of it with minor injuries, the sergeant said, adding there was no indication that he was intoxicated or under the influence of drugs. Charges in juvenile court are pending against the boy. Police did not reveal his identity.
