A man drove through Lot 63, near Maple-Willow-Larch Resident Halls this weekend, causing thousands of dollars in damage to 12 vehicles, said Department of Public Safety officials.

Justin Lawrence Anderson, 22, of West Des Moines, was arrested 3 a.m. Sunday by the DPS, said Jerry Stewart, associate director of DPS. He was charged with second-offense operating while intoxicated and criminal mischief.

“This is treated as crime instead of an accident because it’s believed the damage was caused intentionally,” Stewart said. “The suspect said he struck the cars because he couldn’t find a parking space.”

Stewart said the man drove his red 1989 Chevy Beretta into five parked vehicles, pushing those cars into other parked vehicles.

“I’m not aware of anything like this happening in the past 10 years,” he said.

Derek Miller, junior in computer engineering, witnessed the incident and called DPS. He said he was walking toward Maple-Willow-Larch when he saw a vehicle pushed into an aisle in the parking lot near his car. “I thought it was an accident,” he said. “I was hoping it wasn’t my car.”

Miller said he walked back toward his car and realized it wasn’t just an accident. “When I first spotted [him] pull in and reverse out of a spot, I thought they were trying to park straight,” he said. “That’s when they floored it and ran into another car.”

Miller said the suspect was basically “ramming” cars head-on and pushing them out of their parking spots and into other cars.

Tami Stearns, sophomore in biology, said her 1985 Volkswagen was hit by the suspect. “My roommate told me what happened and I thought, `Oh God, my car barely runs anyway,'” she said.

She said her vehicle had been pushed three parking spots away from its original location. “It really made me mad that someone would do that,” she said. “They were driving drunk and other people’s stuff got damaged.”