No criminal charges in Milwaukee OWI crash that destroyed food truck
MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- The drunk driver that crashed into and destroyed a Milwaukee food truck on Feb. 26 on Capitol will not face criminal charges.
That's due to the Wisconsin state law that does not criminalize a driver's first OWI offense.
That law makes the first OWI a civil offense unless it causes physical injury or if a minor is present.
That didn't happen when the food truck was destroyed Feb. 26, so the driver only gets a citation.
Wisconsin is the only state in the country where a first OWI is a civil offense.
Glenn Gaskill is an attorney at Grieve Law. He said there has been talk over the years of changing the law, but "to get the support needed to do so is really difficult because you are dealing with a state where bars are really important, and breweries are really important and influential."
When a 28-year-old woman slammed into the Gumbo Valley food truck last month, it was her first OWI.
The district attorney's office told us MPD will write a simple citation because it was a municipal matter.
The day after the crash, owner Andre Richards told us what went into making his business a success. He said, "It took me 14 months almost, night and day, to build that truck. It got destroyed in seconds."
The owners want to get a truck back out there as soon as possible. A GoFundMe page has raised more than five times their goal. But if they want money from the driver, they're going to have to sue.
Because of its relative leniency, a first OWI in Wisconsin is often compared to a speeding ticket.
But Gaskill says that's not entirely accurate, saying with a speeding ticket, "you get a second, you get a third, you get a fourth, you get a fifth. We're not talking about felonies and going to prison. An OWI 1st starts the counter."
Gaskill said a second OWI triggers mandatory jail time.
He also pointed to high court costs for an OWI, high insurance rates, and the cost of an ignition interlock device that is sometimes required to ensure sobriety.
He said, "You add all those things up, and we're talking about penalties that are maybe still on the low end as far as OWIs are concerned, but they're certainly much higher than when we're talking about a speeding ticket."
But two factors can elevate a first OWI: having children in the car and causing physical injury.
Gaskill said, "Those are different charges, but they exacerbate the situation and allow the judge to then send the individual to jail."
There is one caveat in the food truck case: authorities have up to three years to file misdemeanor charges after an OWI, in part to allow time to see if an incident causes physical injuries that aren't immediately apparent.
So if the food truck owner were to develop injuries in the future that are tied to the crash, it could level-up the charges for the OWI first offense.