Charges filed Monday against three teenagers reveal details of two carjackings in Edina and St. Louis Park that left several people injured.
Two of them, ages 16 and 17 and both from Minneapolis, face five counts each of first-degree aggravated robbery charges for their involvement in separate, but related, carjackings in Lunds & Byerlys parking lots Dec. 9.
Another 16-year-old, also of Minneapolis, has been charged with two counts of first-degree aggravated robbery in connection with the St. Louis Park incident.
The Hennepin County attorney's office has filed a motion to have the two 16-year-olds certified to stand trial as adults. The Star Tribune generally does not name juveniles who have been charged in criminal cases.
When St. Louis Park police arrived at the grocery store, the male victim said that two of the juveniles, ages 16 and 17, repeatedly punched him and threatened him with a drill, pretending it was a gun. A male who tried to help the victim was assaulted by one of the juveniles, who got away in a stolen SUV driven by the other 16-year-old.
A short time later, two of the juveniles accused of beating the driver in St. Louis Park tried to steal another vehicle at the Edina grocery store, the court documents said. They punched the female driver and tried to push her out of the car.
The woman honked her horn and two people tried to pull the juveniles out of the vehicle. During the scuffle, one of the juveniles bit one of the men, court documents said.
One of the suspects put the female victim's vehicle in reverse as he tried to flee the scene, striking a man in the head with the driver's side door and running over his legs. The female victim, still in her seatbelt, was dragged through the parking lot and sustained significant cuts and scrapes on her right shoulder.
A man with a permit to carry a firearm intervened and pulled out his gun; the juveniles fled.
All three teenagers were arrested after they were identified through surveillance footage, witness accounts and tips from the public.