CANTON, Ohio — The Ohio State Highway Patrol reports that a 23-year-old man was taken into custody after allegedly crashing a stolen car into a Canton ice cream shop in the overnight hours on Monday.
According to a release from the Canton Post of the OSHP, the single car crash happened at approximately 2:12 a.m. as a silver Honda Accord crashed into Taggarts Ice Cream on Fulton Road.
Troopers say that prior to the crash, an attempt was made to do a traffic stop on the car which was driven by Preston Cingle, whose listed address is "homeless."
"Mr. Cingle attempted a high speed backing maneuver from 14th St., across Fulton Rd., and into the building of Taggarts ice cream shop. Mr. Cingle then fled the scene on foot after the crash. He was apprehended a short time later by Canton police units," the OSHP noted in its release.
Cingle was not injured and booked into the Stark County Jail on the following charges:
- Grand Theft of a Motor Vehicle (F-4)
- Failure to Comply/ Flee from a police officer (F-3)
- Vandalism (F-4)
- OVI (M1)
- Driving Under Suspension (M-1)
- Hit Skip (M-1)
- No Tail Lights (MM)
Taggarts sustained "extensive damage" to its building, according to the highway patrol.
In a Facebook post, Taggarts shared photos of the damage done after "an unexpected visitor in the middle of the night."
"Everyone is safe and we are going to work diligently to get Taggarts back open," the post added.
3News also captured photos of Taggerts on Monday morning and found that the front of the building was boarded up.
PHOTOS: Car crashes into Taggarts Ice Cream in Canton
On Monday afternoon, 3News' Danielle Wiggins visited Taggarts on Monday afternoon and spoke with owner Mindy Mullaly about what was destroyed.
"He (Cingle) destroyed history. He (composes herself to keep herself from crying) He, I'm sorry. He destroyed history. I mean these booths have been here since 1926. It's a lot and I mean we'll restore it. No one's going to walk in here and it's not going to be like a modernized Taggarts. It's going to back to as much as the original as it could look like."
Mullaly hopes to reopen the store for to-go orders by the end of this week. But there's a lot of work to be done.
"I still don't know what to think," she added. "I don't even know where to begin to clean this up. I mean, there's still part of the car in the restaurant. It's insane."