Car drives through Minnesota restaurant patio, killing two and injuring four
Event date: 2024-09-01
A man drove his car through the outdoor patio of Park Tavern in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, killing two people and injuring at least four others, according to police and hospital officials. The crash happened Sunday evening at a restaurant patio where a group of medical workers had gathered to celebrate, turning what should have been an ordinary dinner into a mass casualty scene in a Minneapolis suburb.
Police said surveillance footage captured the driver entering the parking lot, attempting to park and then driving into the patio. He was arrested for criminal vehicular homicide. Officers did not identify him or give a motive. That lack of explanation leaves the incident in a familiar but still unsettling category: a fast, deadly vehicle strike with no immediate public account of why it happened.
The hospital response revealed the human ties behind the casualty count. Methodist Hospital said one of the dead and four of the injured worked there, and all four injured workers were nurses. Dr. Thomas Stark told local television that the group had been celebrating a colleague leaving for a new job. One of the wounded nurses was hospitalized with severe injuries, showing that the effects of the crash reached deeply into the hospital community.
The second person who died was identified by Park Tavern owner Phil Weber as Kristina Folkerts, a server with longstanding ties to the restaurant. Weber said Folkerts had grown up around the restaurant after her mother's death and had been supported by staff there as a teenager. The restaurant said it would remain closed until further notice, and the hospital said grief counselors would be available to staff.
The AP report said the Minnesota State Patrol carried out an accident reconstruction and that the investigation remained ongoing. That detail matters because authorities were still trying to determine whether the driver's actions were deliberate, reckless or the result of some other failure. In the meantime, the scene had already become one of shock, mourning and unfinished questions.
What happened in St. Louis Park also speaks to how quickly a vehicle can become a weapon or a disaster when it leaves the roadway and enters a crowded social space. The source did not describe any wider threat, but it did show a packed patio, a single car and a devastating result that left two dead, several hurt and a neighborhood searching for meaning in a sudden act of violence.
The investigation will also need to answer whether the crash was a deliberate act or another form of criminal driving. The AP report did not provide a motive, but it did show that the driver attempted to park before steering into the crowd, a detail that investigators will likely treat as central. For the hospital workers and restaurant staff, though, the immediate result was far less technical: a normal night out ended in loss, injury and a long wait for answers.
The family and workplace ties around the crash are part of what made it so painful. Methodist Hospital said the dead colleague and the four injured nurses all worked there, while the restaurant itself was closed after losing a longtime server. Those details show that the incident did not just kill two people; it tore through a shared work circle and a community gathering.
