A police dog found a loaded handgun just north of a Maplewood parking lot where a Saint Paul man took off running from an officer in May, according to a complaint.
Police went to a Holiday gas station at about 8:20 p.m. on May 17 on reports of a fight and that someone had a gun. A store employee said two men argued in the parking lot, one of them on crutches. The other man kept reaching into his sweatshirt as if he had a gun, the employee said. No one involved was still there when police arrived.
While officers headed to the area, another caller reported a man on crutches with a gun entering Battle Creek Park. An officer saw Curtis Kiamani Rollins, who was 34 at the time of the alleged offense, walking near the park. Rollins told the officer he was coming from his home and had no weapons. When the officer said he would search him, Rollins pushed away and ran, ignoring orders to stop, the complaint says. The officer saw him reach into his waistband a few times before he fell after running through a ditch.
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Police later recovered Rollins’ crutches and phone at the spot where he started running. The handgun, a Taurus Spectrum .380, held several live rounds including one in the chamber.
Rollins told officers a man at the gas station had pulled a gun on him and that he walked away, then ran because he was afraid. He declined to talk about the gun that was found and said video from the gas station would show he was the victim of an assault, according to the complaint.
A BCA report dated July 1 found a mixture of DNA from two people on the handgun. The major male profile matched Rollins, the complaint says. It also says a 2023 felony conviction for aggravated robbery in Cook County, Illinois, bars him from having guns or ammunition.
Rollins is charged in Ramsey County District Court in a complaint filed Nov. 9 with two felony counts of possessing a firearm or ammunition after a conviction for a crime of violence, one for the handgun and one for ammunition. Each carries up to 15 years in prison or a $30,000 fine or both.
