The motorist who fatally ran over a runner in a St. Paul crosswalk was actively using his cellphone for nearly 23 minutes, an uninterrupted span of time that includes the moment of impact, according to a forensic search of his phone cited in a court document filed last week.
In a search warrant affidavit seeking permission to crack open Peter Berge's Facebook account, police said they have data from AT&T that show "an active data session" from just past 4:03 p.m. on Feb. 22 until shortly after 4:26 p.m. on the phone of the prominent 60-year-old attorney.
Berge hit 35-year-old Scott Spoo at 4:22 p.m., within that phone-use time frame, according to the court filing's citing of Ramsey County emergency dispatch records.
Spoo, of St. Paul, was an avid runner and bicyclist who had worked for 3M in the Twin Cities for 11 years and was an engineer.
About a week after the crash on Mississippi River Boulevard at Dayton Avenue, Berge was found to have an aggressive form of brain cancer, according to his friend Mike Salovich. He has told police that "his condition was the cause of his impaired behavior" at the time of the crash, the latest court filing read.
Berge, who underwent brain surgery, has not been charged in Spoo's death. A preliminary breath test showed no alcohol in his system, and he told officers that he hadn't taken any drugs or medication. Police took blood for toxicology tests. Those results are pending.
Last week's search warrant application, filed in Ramsey County District Court, includes a motorist who reported driving behind Berge's BMW on Mississippi River Boulevard and seeing him "driving with his cellphone in his hand ... Berge kept looking down at his phone. The witness stated that Berge was varying his speed including rapidly accelerating and swerving into oncoming traffic."
At one point, the court filing continued, the witness saw Berge's car force "one oncoming vehicle off to the shoulder to avoid a collision."
