Despite warning from police, woman leads officers on low-speed chase

Published 2:30 pm Wednesday, September 2, 2015

MANKATO, Minn. — A Mankato woman who was arrested for drunken driving after leading police officers on a low-speed chase from an entertainment district to her apartment complex about six blocks away had been warned to stay out of her car.

When Jovoni Marie Parker failed to heed the warnings of two officers on foot patrol in downtown Mankato, it was the beginning of what one law enforcement official called “a cascading series of events of bad judgment and conduct.”

Nathan Gove, executive director of the Minnesota Board of Peace Officer Standards and Training, said imploring Parker to stay out of her car was apparently all the officers could have done.

“Where your responsibility ends is where your authority ends,” said Gove, a 29-year law enforcement veteran. “If she’s not posing an imminent danger to herself or others, if she’s not driving a vehicle, they don’t have the authority to do something different like impound her keys.”

Parker, 25, also has been charged with child neglect for leaving her three children, ages 7, 6 and 4, at her apartment alone.

According to a police report obtained by the Mankato (Minn.) Free Press, two officers were on foot patrol downtown at about 2:30 a.m. Saturday when they saw Parker and a man getting into a car parked in the lower level of the Cherry Street Parking Ramp. Both were obviously intoxicated and Parker was getting into the driver’s seat, the officers reported.

Parker walked toward the officers to talk to them after one of the officers asked her if she was sober enough to drive. She tried to convince them she was capable of driving, but she failed a common field test, smelled like alcohol and had bloodshot eyes, the officers reported.

After completing the eye test, the officers told Parker they would call another officer in a squad car to stop her if they saw her leaving the ramp in her car. As the officers walked across the entertainment district mall toward the intersection of Cherry and Front streets, they saw Parker driving out of the ramp.

An officer was called to stop Parker, but she refused to pull over, according to a criminal complaint filed in Blue Earth County District Court. Another officer joined the slow-speed chase as Parker drove up Cherry Street and on to Glenwood Avenue. She stopped after pulling into a parking stall at the the Cherry Ridge apartment complex, about six blocks from downtown.

A preliminary breath test showed Parker had a blood-alcohol concentration of .22, more than twice the legal limit of .08 for driving. She was arrested for driving while intoxicated and felony fleeing police in a motor vehicle at about 3 a.m. Saturday.

When Parker was interviewed at the jail, she told officers she had one shot of cognac at about 1:30 a.m. When she was asked why she didn’t stop, she said she didn’t believe officers had a reason to stop her, she was looking for a good place to stop, and she wanted to get home to her kids, the complaint said.

Officers had already learned during the stop that Parker had left her three young children at home while she was downtown. An officer took the children into protective custody after he found them sleeping in Parker’s apartment.

Blue Earth County Health and Human Services has started the Child in Need of Protective Services process to have the children removed from Parker’s custody. A new child protection petition states Parker has been investigated by human services workers in Blue Earth, Hennepin and Ramsey counties in the past.

The Mankato (Minn.) Free Press contributed to this story.