Rochester, MN (KROC-AM News) - A Twin Cities man has pleaded guilty to charges connected to a police chase through southeast Rochester last year.

According to the criminal complaint, 29-year-old Kenwone Darrian Pruitt led law enforcement on a pursuit that began after an Olmsted County deputy responded to a property damage call from a towing company along Highway 30 near the Rochester Airport on January 2, 2024. The report indicated that the St. Paul man drove his vehicle out of the business’s parking lot without paying impound fees and damaged other vehicles in the process.

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The complaint states the responding deputy activated his squad car’s emergency lights after spotting the vehicle heading north on South Broadway at 28th Street. The pursuit continued north until the deputy and a Minnesota State Trooper stopped the vehicle at the 16th Street intersection near Graham Park.

The two officers reported that they ordered Pruitt to exit the vehicle and the deputy placed a tire-deflation device under the suspect’s rear passenger tire. The complaint says Pruitt refused to get out and then sped away as a Rochester Police officer arrived to assist.

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Officers decided not to pursue. Pruitt was later arrested at the Kwik Trip store at the intersection of Highway 14 and 3rd Avenue. The arresting officer reported that the vehicle was parked with a flat tire and Pruitt was standing next to it, smoking a cigarette.

Pruitt was charged with felony fleeing police and gross misdemeanor third-degree property damage. Under a plea agreement recently finalized in Olmsted County Court, he pleaded guilty to an amended charge of felony first-degree property damage in exchange for dismissal of the fleeing police charge.

He is scheduled to be sentenced in October.