18-year-old Allegedly Lured Victim to Edina Robbery, Attack
BY MN CRIME STAFF
An 18-year-old faces felony charges after prosecutors say he and four others lured a man to an Edina apartment complex, then beat and robbed him at gunpoint.
The attack happened on the evening of Friday, March 6.
Zakariya Abdinasir Ali, of Hopkins, was charged with first-degree aggravated robbery and second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon, according to a criminal complaint filed Tuesday.
Edina police arrested Ali on Wednesday on a warrant, and he was booked into the Hennepin County jail, where he is being held on $100,000 bail.
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The complaint says Edina police were called around 9:31 p.m. to a 911 report of people fighting in the hallway of an apartment complex. The caller reported blood in the hallway and said they heard someone threaten to shoot another person. Multiple people wearing dark clothing and masks were involved, according to the caller.
As officers arrived, they saw four people run to a Toyota Camry and detained them. Officers also found the victim holding Ali on the ground near the front of the building. The victim was bleeding from a laceration on top of his head and told police Ali had thrown a gun into nearby bushes.
Officers searched the area and recovered a black Glock 9mm pistol equipped with a red "switch" — a device that converts the firearm to fire multiple rounds with a single trigger pull.
The victim told police he'd come to the apartment complex to meet a woman he connected with on Snapchat two days earlier. When he arrived, one of the accomplices, wearing a face mask, let him inside the building and led him down a hallway. Near a stairwell, several males confronted and attacked the victim, striking him with their fists and with the slides of pistols. The assailants repeatedly racked the slides, removing magazines before pointing the guns at him.
The group demanded the victim's car keys and eventually took them. Several of them left to go to his car while one stayed behind with the victim. They returned and continued the assault, demanding he send them money from his phone. The victim refused, and the group kept striking him with pistols and holding him at gunpoint. Court records show the victim told police all of the assailants took turns hitting him with a pistol at various points during the attack. He lost consciousness at one point during the assault, which lasted about five minutes.
One of the accomplices returned and warned the group that police were arriving, and the assailants ran from the building. The victim chased Ali, caught him and wrestled him to the ground outside. Ali threatened the victim with the Glock 9mm fitted with the switch before throwing it in the bushes, the complaint says. The victim held Ali on the ground until officers arrived.
Police found the victim's car with its trunk partially open and his property scattered on the ground. Items inside the vehicle had also been rummaged through.
The victim positively identified all five detained people as participants in the robbery during a show-up identification procedure.
Officers searched all five. Ali had four live .40-caliber cartridges in his jacket pocket. One of the others had a .40-caliber Glock pistol with a loaded extended magazine tucked in his front waistband — the chamber was empty, and a ball of hair was pinched in the slide near the barrel. Inside another person's jacket, police found a plastic bag containing what appeared to be a Glock back plate, a component that must be removed to install a switch. Four black face masks were found inside the Toyota Camry.
Inside the building, officers found gun parts and apparent blood on the stairwell floor where the assault took place. A trail of blood led from the stairwell to the exterior door near where the victim held Ali on the ground. Police also recovered a live 9mm cartridge on the second stair.
Ali is scheduled to make his first court appearance Thursday afternoon. He faces up to twenty years in prison on the first-degree aggravated robbery charge and up to seven years on the second-degree assault charge. Both charges carry a mandatory minimum sentence of three years due to the use of a firearm.
Edina police arrested Ali on Wednesday on a warrant, and he was booked into the Hennepin County jail, where he is being held on $100,000 bail.