Golden Valley Woman Leads Eden Prairie Police on High-Speed Chase

A Golden Valley woman has been charged after Eden Prairie Police say she led them on a chase that reached 80 mph on a 50 mph stretch of Flying Cloud Drive.

Monica Lee Giles, 26, came to the attention of officers on Mitchell Road at 6:54 a.m. Sept. 2 when they saw a white GMC Jimmy nearly hit a curb near Scenic Heights Road, Officer Kyle Duchschere wrote in the charging documents. The driver swerved back and forth in the lane, and the vehicle was traveling at 47 mph in a 30 mph zone.

The driver ignored officers’ lights and siren then turned west on Pioneer Trail and accelerated to 60 mph in a 45 mph zone. The driver then turned south on Dell Road and east on Flying Cloud Drive—where the vehicle hit 80 mph in a 50 mph zone.

Other officers began to converge on the area, and one officer deployed “stop-sticks,” which puncture a vehicle’s tires to making continued travel difficult. The Jimmy swerved toward the officer’s squad car, coming within 2 feet of hitting it.

The driver continued to speed close to 70 mph, despite having a disintegrating front tire. It turned on several streets before ending up on Pepperdine Court, where the Jimmy drove off the road between two houses and went over a retaining wall into the woods below.

The SUV was unoccupied when officers approached it, but a police dog tracked down Giles.

After officers arrested her, she said she “freaked out” because she had a felony arrest warrant for failing to appear at a court hearing. Officers later found items in the SUV that had been stolen from a Golden Valley contractor’s yard. The Jimmy was reported stolen from St. Paul.

Giles has been charged with fleeing a police officer in a motor vehicle—a felony that carries a maximum sentence of three years and a day in prison and a $5,000 fine.

She’s being held in Hennepin County Jail on $10,000 bail for the Eden Prairie charge. Bail has also been set at $5,000 bond for a St. Louis Park drug charge and a $300 for a Brooklyn Park theft charge.