Police ID driver who exited I-94 at ‘very high rate of speed’ and caused crash that injured 5 in SUV

Police have identified the driver they suspect was intoxicated when she exited a Minneapolis interstate at “a very high rate of speed” over the weekend and caused a crash that injured all five of the SUV’s occupants, three of them critically.

The rollover wreck occurred at about 8:20 a.m. Sunday at the Dowling exit from eastbound I-94, police said. Officers arrived to find the SUV with Iowa license plates on its side, leaning against a telephone pole.

Police collected blood from Juweriyo Abdurashid Ali, 26, for testing on suspicion that she was under the influence of alcohol at the time of the crash, according to a search warrant affidavit filed late Tuesday afternoon in Hennepin County District Court.

“The 911 caller was asking to get the liquor bottles out of the vehicle,” the affidavit read.

A police officer met with Ali at North Memorial Health Hospital.

“I could smell the odor of an alcoholic beverage emanating from her person,” he wrote in the filing. “I was able to view a video of the crash taken from the surveillance cameras on a nearby house which showed the vehicle traveling at a very high rate of speed. I believe she is impaired and can not drive a vehicle safely in the state of Minnesota.”

When officers arrived, they saw three women down outside the vehicle, another “partially ejected through the windshield” and a fifth trapped in the wreckage, police noted.

Three women were taken from the scene to a nearby hospital with critical injuries, while two were less seriously hurt and also hospitalized, according to police. The women ranged in age from 24 to 28, police said.

Police have not identified the passengers, but a North Memorial spokesperson said one of them, Mintaha Yusuf Ali, 24, of Minneapolis, was in fair condition late Wednesday afternoon. The spokesperson said Juweriyo was in good condition.