A Blaine man is charged in a drive-by shooting on Highway 100 in Saint Louis Park that wounded a driver in the ankle after a car registered to the man followed his vehicle from a Columbia Heights restaurant, according to a criminal complaint.
Abdisalan Muhumed Ali, 19, faces felony counts of drive-by shooting toward an occupied vehicle and second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon. The complaint was issued Oct. 14 in Hennepin County District Court, and bail was set at $250,000.
According to the complaint, officers were called at about 6:03 p.m. Sept. 30 to southbound Highway 100, where a white Honda Accord had pulled onto the shoulder near the Excelsior Boulevard exit. The driver had been shot in the left ankle, and his front-seat passenger was not hurt. Officers counted what appeared to be six bullet strikes on the car and found 9mm and .45-caliber casings in the southbound lanes.
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The two men told police they had eaten at a restaurant in Columbia Heights and were heading to Minnetonka to play sports with friends. The driver said a new black Hyundai Sonata with dark tint and a plate starting with “Z” left the restaurant lot after them and seemed to follow them, the complaint says.
Surveillance video showed the Sonata, which is registered to Ali, arrive at the restaurant lot at about 5:23 p.m. Its driver never got out, while other people got in and out of the back seat, according to the complaint. Video then showed the Sonata trailing the Accord from the restaurant, speeding up after the Highway 7 exit and driving alongside it where the casings were later found, before continuing south at high speed and exiting at Vernon Avenue South.
Phone data placed Ali near the restaurant and near the shooting at those times, the complaint says. It says he is associated with the “1300” gang.
The .45-caliber casings matched casings from other shootings, including one Sept. 5 in Anoka County in which three people were shot and a Feb. 13 shooting in Burnsville in which the same driver was the target, according to the complaint. The 9mm casings matched a Glock found in June with a man the complaint describes as an associate of Ali’s. Ali is not charged in those other shootings.
