Austin man allegedly flees crash then enters home uninvited

Published 7:35 am Thursday, August 5, 2010

An Austin man faces charges of burglary, drunk driving and fleeing from police after an incident over the weekend.

Troy Lester Benner, 36, was charged Tuesday in Mower County court with felony burglary, as well as two counts of DWI, one count of property damage and one count of fleeing from police.

Benner — who was already awaiting sentencing for another incident in which he held a box cutter to a man’s throat — is currently in custody and awaiting arraignment on Aug. 12.

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According to a criminal complaint, police were called on Saturday at around 8 p.m. regarding a man who had fled from the scene of a car crash and ended up in someone else’s home in 600 block of 10th Street Northeast.

The man, later identified as Benner, reportedly entered the property uninvited after a brief confrontation with a female resident, leading a male resident to strike him with a baseball bat, the complaint states. Benner than reportedly left that residence and returned to his home in the 1000 block of Seventh Avenue Northeast.

The male resident, 30, told police he had met Benner a couple of months earlier.

Police established a perimeter around Benner’s home, and he was apprehended when he tried to leave later that evening. Benner was taken to the Austin Medical Center, where he refused to submit to blood or urine tests though it was suspected he had been driving drunk.

Benner was then taken into jail.