A St. Paul man with a history of traffic violations was charged Tuesday in connection with a fatal hit-and-run that killed a man on a mobility scooter last week.

Erick Gabriel Fuentes-Morales, 21, was charged with one felony count of criminal vehicular homicide and leaving the scene of an accident he caused.

The criminal complaint gave the following details:

About 9:10 p.m. Feb. 11, officers responded to 911 calls about a hit-and-run at Phalen Boulevard near Rose Avenue in St. Paul. When they arrived they found a man on the ground near his mobility scooter and debris from a black car nearby, including a silver Nissan emblem.

The man was unresponsive and was having a seizure. He was taken to the hospital in critical condition. He briefly regained consciousness and was able to tell authorities who he was and that his only relative was his mother with dementia who wouldn’t understand what was happening.

The 66-year-old, Donald John Piele, of St. Paul, died the next day.

Investigators were able to obtain surveillance video that showed Piele in the crosswalk on his scooter when a person speeding in a black sedan hit him. The driver briefly stopped but then drove away.

The investigation led to officers pulling over a vehicle driven by Fuentes-Morales around 12:40 a.m. Friday. The vehicle had damage to the front passenger side, was missing pieces like those found at the scene of the hit-and-run and matched the black sedan’s description, according to the complaint.

The complaint alleges that Fuentes-Morales “appeared nervous and shivered.”

He agreed to speak after being read his right to remain silent. He said he was the only one who drove the vehicle and that the damage occurred a few days earlier when he crashed into a telephone pole. When officers said they had video of him in a crash, he allegedly nodded and said he should have called police.

Then he “looked away and refused to make eye contact when asked if he realized he hit a person,” the complaint said. When officers encouraged  him to be honest he “admitted he knew he hit somebody,” the complaint said.

He denied “driving crazy or drunk,” the complaint said. He didn’t see the person until it was too late to avoid the crash, the complaint said.

When he was asked if he checked on the person he had struck with his vehicle, Fuentes-Morales allegedly said, “he was going to, but he said it was a long story,” the complaint said.

He told officers he had gotten off work at 8 p.m. that night. When officers asked what he did after getting off work and before he hit the man, he allegedly told them he sat in his vehicle and smoked marijuana and cigarettes.

The criminal complaint showed a traffic violation history for Fuentes-Morales that included a 2024 sentence for careless driving; several speeding violations in 2025 including one in which he was accused of passing a marked State Patrol vehicle, and running a red light in Ramsey County in December 2025.

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The Gophers said Tuesday they will bring back the spring football game on Saturday, April 25 at Huntington Bank Stadium.

The U stopped hosting a public intrasquad scrimmage a few years ago due to a string of poor weather on the game’s date and amid concerns about losing current players after the game via the transfer portal. This year, the NCAA went down to one transfer portal window in January.

The Gophers will share details for the upcoming spring game, including its start time, at a later date.

The U encourages fans to bring a personalized, decorated oar to hang in the stadium’s tunnel and to donate baby diaper to help families in need.

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PUEBLO, Colo. (AP) — Four people died in a pileup involving over 30 vehicles, including six semitrailers, on an interstate in Colorado Tuesday after blowing dirt made it hard for drivers to see, authorities said.

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Dirt kicked up by heavy winds caused “brown out” conditions at the time of the pileup on Interstate 25 south of Pueblo around 10 a.m. the Colorado State Patrol said. It said drivers had “low to no visibility.”

The patrol said 29 people were taken to the hospital but the extent of their injuries wasn’t known.

The cause of the crash is still being investigated. The lack of visibility will be considered as one of the factors in the crash, but others may also be involved, said Trooper Sherri Mendez, a patrol spokesperson.

Emergency personnel work the scene of a crash involving 30-plus vehicles including six semi trucks on Interstate 25 south of Pueblo, Colo., on Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026. (Christian Murdock/The Gazette via AP)

The eastern half of Colorado was being hit by strong winds Tuesday, which combined with warm weather and very dry conditions, have also raised the risk of wildfires and caused flight delays at Denver’s airport.

Meanwhile, it was snowing in the western part of the state, bringing much needed snow to the mountains.

A six-foot wooden whistle sculpture is not the kind of artwork photographer Wilson Webb usually creates.

But when federal immigration enforcement raids ramped up earlier this year in West St. Paul, where Webb lives, he knew he wanted to show his support for the thriving Latino population in the city and other immigrant groups in the Twin Cities, he said. And the whistle, which activists blow to warn of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents’ presence, was emerging as a powerful symbol of community solidarity against ICE.

“I wanted to make something that made a larger statement physically and showed my support, and maybe in turn would give others some small glimmer of hope in these horrible times,” Webb said. “It’s out of frustration for what’s going on and the injustices that have been happening here in the community.”

A large whistle sculpture sits in photographer Wilson Webb’s front yard in West St. Paul on Feb. 9, 2026. Webb, who built the sculpture, also offered free whistles, which have become a way for activists to alert one another of the presence of federal immigration agents. (Courtesy of Wilson Webb)

The completed work, a large white coach’s whistle with the words “ICE OUT” painted on the side, went on display in the front yard of Webb’s West St. Paul home earlier in February.

And it immediately caught the attention of neighbors and local media like the West St. Paul Reader, which first posted a video of the sculpture on Facebook that has since been viewed more than 300,000 times.

Webb began drawing out plans for the whistle in late January, and construction took about two weeks, he said.

Professionally, Webb is an on-set photographer, documenting behind the scenes of movies like the Coen Brothers’ “A Serious Man” and capturing theater poster images for Greta Gerwig’s “Little Women” and Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story,” among others.

He has some woodworking experience from previous jobs as a handyman and painter, he said, but some of the more complex fabrication elements like the curved body of the whistle were figured out on the fly.

“I’m always making things,” he said. “Sometimes those things are photos, sometimes sculptures, sometimes fixes around the house. Figuring out how to materialize something with your own hands is just a challenge that I enjoy.”

When the sculpture was installed in early February, Webb also set out free whistles for passersby to take. The overarching goal, he said, is to show like-minded neighbors that they are not alone in their opposition to ICE activity in Minnesota.

“It’s a sculpture in a yard; it’s not changing the way things are done — but, as a small symbol, it might add up to more positivity,” he said.

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