HENNEPIN COUNTY, MN — A 19-year-old Blaine man is charged with two felonies after prosecutors say he followed two men from a Columbia Heights restaurant and opened fire on their car on Highway 100 in St. Louis Park, wounding the driver.
Abdisalan Muhumed Ali was charged Wednesday in Hennepin County District Court with drive-by shooting toward an occupied motor vehicle and second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon, according to a criminal complaint. District Court Judge Karen A. Janisch ordered him held on $250,000 bail.
Charging documents also state Ali is associated with the "1300" gang.
St. Louis Park police, with help from the Anoka County Sheriff's Office SWAT team, served a search warrant around 5:40 a.m. Tuesday in the 11300 block of Johnson Street NE in Blaine, the city said. Ali was arrested during the operation on probable cause of second-degree assault.
Officers responded around 6:03 p.m. on Sept. 30 to a shooting on southbound Highway 100 near the Excelsior Boulevard exit, the complaint states. A white Honda Accord had pulled onto the shoulder, and its driver had been shot in the left ankle. The front-seat passenger was not hurt.
Police counted what appeared to be six bullet strikes on the car and found .45-caliber and 9 mm shell casings in the southbound lanes of the highway.
The two men told investigators they had eaten in Columbia Heights and were heading to Minnetonka to meet friends to play sports. The driver said he noticed a new black Hyundai Sonata with dark tint, dark wheels and a Minnesota license plate starting with "Z" leave the restaurant parking lot after them, and he believed it was following them.
He said he was caught off guard by gunfire and the sound of bullets passing through the car.
Surveillance video showed the Sonata, which is registered to Ali, pulling into the restaurant lot around 5:23 p.m., about eight minutes after the victims arrived, according to the complaint. The driver of the Sonata never got out, but associates came and went through its rear driver's side door.
The victims left the lot at 5:36 p.m., and the Sonata left a minute later through the same exit onto Central Avenue, the complaint states. Video showed the Sonata trailing a few vehicles behind the Accord all the way to Highway 100.
After passing the Highway 7 exit, the Sonata sped up and drove alongside the Accord for a short stretch, in the same area where officers later found the casings. The Accord slowed and pulled onto the shoulder just past the Excelsior Boulevard bridge, while the Sonata continued south at high speed and exited at Vernon Avenue South, according to the complaint.
Investigators searched Ali's home and the Sonata, and data from his phone placed him near the restaurant and the shooting scene at the times in question, the complaint says.
Charging documents also state Ali is associated with the "1300" gang.
Ballistics analysis tied the .45-caliber casings to several other shootings, according to the complaint, including a Sept. 5 shooting in Anoka County in which three people were shot and a July 19 shooting in Minneapolis in which a vehicle and two homes were struck.
The same .45-caliber casings were also matched to a Feb. 13 shooting in Burnsville, and the complaint says the driver wounded on Highway 100 was the target of that earlier shooting.
The 9 mm casings matched a Glock that police found in the possession of one of Ali's known associates on June 10, according to the complaint. The gun was returned to the associate on June 22 after he produced his permit to carry. Phone records show Ali was in contact with that associate 26 times between Sept. 5 and Oct. 4, the complaint states.
St. Louis Park Police Chief Bryan Kruelle said officers and investigators "worked tirelessly to find the individuals accountable for bringing violence into our community." He added that the department will keep working with regional law enforcement partners on incidents affecting the area without stigmatizing any group of people.
The city said the investigation remains active and that no further details will be released for now to avoid compromising investigative leads.
The drive-by shooting charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $20,000 fine, while the assault charge carries up to seven years. Because a firearm was allegedly used, each count carries a mandatory minimum sentence of three years.
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