Driver who hit man on Brooklyn Center street, left him to die given 6 months' home monitoring

A driver who hit a man on a Brooklyn Center street and left him to die was sentenced Thursday to six months of electronic home monitoring.

The sentencing of Monroe C. Edwards, 21, in Hennepin County District Court came after he agreed to plead guilty to criminal vehicular homicide in connection with the crash on Sept. 19 that killed 64-year-old Diodoro Dimas Salgado, who was lying in the street near his home before he was struck.

The state Department of Public Safety said Edwards, of Brooklyn Center, was driving despite a revoked license. His criminal history in Minnesota includes two convictions for fleeing police in a motor vehicle.

Judge Carolina Lamas followed the terms of the plea agreement and set aside the four-year sentence called for under state guidelines. Two-thirds of that time would have been served in prison. The judge's sentence includes five years' probation and requires Edwards to refrain from alcohol or illicit drug use during that time.

In explaining her decision, Lamas said Edwards was particularly amenable to probation, showed remorse and accepted responsibility for his actions.

According to the criminal complaint:

Witnesses told police they heard a loud noise and saw a car leave the scene at the 6600 block of N. Dupont Avenue. Officers tracked fluid that had leaked from the car to a hotel less than a mile to the southwest. Video surveillance of the hotel showed Edwards in the parking lot "closely examining the vehicle, even getting under it," the complaint read.

Municipal video captured the car returning to the scene shortly after the crash while emergency vehicles were there with lights activated. The car then drove off.

A woman told police she drove around someone down in the road, then pulled over and called her husband. While on the phone, she saw a speeding car run over the person. Police said the woman told detectives she saw the person moving before Edwards struck him. Dimas Salgado died at the scene.

Edwards pulled over next to the woman's vehicle, according to the complaint, and said to her, "What was that?" She told him it was a person, and he replied, "No, it was a bag."

The next day, police located the car at Edwards' home and found evidence of the collision on its underside. Edwards told police he ran over a speed bump and didn't learn it was a person until the next morning.