The Latest: Witness: Woman screamed child thrown at mall
BLOOMINGTON, Minn. (AP) — The Latest on a 5-year-old child injured in an apparent attack at Minnesota’s Mall of America (all times local):
5 p.m.
Court records show a 24-year-old Minneapolis man suspected of throwing or pushing a 5-year-old boy from a balcony at the Mall of America was charged in two previous incidents at the mall.
Emmanuel Deshawn Aranda was arrested on July 4, 2015, after police said he matched the description of a man throwing things off the upper level of the mall to the lower level. Police say Aranda refused to give his name and resisted arrest. Aranda also was accused of walking into a mall store and sweeping his hand across a display table, breaking glasses.
In October 2015, Aranda was accused of throwing glasses in Twin Cities Grill in the mall. The complaint says Aranda approached a woman who was waiting for the restaurant to open and asked her to buy him something. The woman refused, and Aranda allegedly threw a glass of water in her face and a glass of tea that struck her leg. Aranda was under a trespass notice at the time banning him from the mall until July 4, 2016.
Aranda was chased and arrested Friday after the boy was thrown or pushed from a third-floor balcony and landed on the first floor at the mall. The boy suffered life-threatening injuries.
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4:30 p.m.
A 24-year-old Minneapolis man is being held on suspicion of attempted homicide in an apparent attack in which a 5-year-old boy was pushed or thrown from a third-floor balcony at the Mall of America.
Police identified Emmanuel Deshawn Aranda as the man who was chased and arrested after Friday morning’s incident at the megamall in suburban Minneapolis.
The child suffered life-threatening injuries and is being treated at a hospital. Details of his condition weren’t immediately available.
Aranda’s criminal record includes two convictions in 2015 for obstruction of the legal process/interfering with a peace officer, as well as convictions for fifth-degree assault, trespassing and damage to property.
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4:15 p.m.
Police in Minnesota say a 5-year-old boy suffered life-threatening injuries when he was pushed or thrown from a third-floor balcony at the Mall of America.
Witnesses say the boy’s mother was screaming and asking others to pray for her son.
Tina Hailey of Burnsville, Minnesota, tells the Star Tribune she was walking with her husband on the mall’s first floor when she heard screams. Hailey says the mother appeared to be in shock and “didn’t know what to do,” and that “Nobody was helping her.”
Witnesses say a suspect ran away and was arrested at the mall’s transit station. The 24-year-old man from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area is being held at the Bloomington Police Department.
The boy was taken to a hospital. His condition is unknown.
Police say the suspect apparently does not know the victim or the victim’s family.
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Corrects Hailey’s first name to ‘Tina’ instead of ‘Tiny.’
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2:15 p.m.
A witness says a woman screamed that her child was thrown from a balcony at the Mall of America in Minnesota.
Brian Johnson told WCCO-TV the woman was screaming, “Everybody pray, everybody pray. Oh my God, my baby, someone threw him over the edge.”
Johnson says the woman was screaming that her child was thrown from a third-floor balcony at the Bloomington, Minnesota, mall. The child landed on the first floor on Friday morning.
Police say the child is 5 years old. The police chief says the child suffered “significant injuries” and was taken to a hospital.
A suspect was arrested at the mall. Police don’t think there is any relationship between the man and the child or the child’s family. Authorities don’t know a motive.
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12:55 p.m.
Police in Minnesota say they’ve arrested a 24-year-old man in an incident in which a child may have been pushed or thrown from a balcony at the Mall of America.
Bloomington Police Chief Jeffrey Potts says witnesses told police that the child may have fallen from the mall’s third level to the first floor on Friday morning. Potts says officers gave first aid but the 5-year-old child suffered “significant injuries” and had been taken to a hospital.
Potts says the suspect took off running right after the incident but was quickly found and arrested at the mall.
He says police don’t think there is any relationship between the man and the child or the child’s family. He says police don’t have an idea about possible motive.
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12:46 p.m.
Police in Minnesota say they’re investigating an incident at the Mall of America in which a child was reportedly thrown from a third-floor balcony.
Police in Bloomington tweeted that a 5-year-old child suffered injuries and was being treated at a hospital Friday. Police didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking details about the incident.
The Star Tribune reports that the child was being treated at Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis.
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