Authorities identify Mall of America shooting victim
Dec 26, 2022, 8:38 AM | Updated: 8:39 am
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Authorities have identified the 19-year-old man who was fatally shot during an altercation at the Mall of America on Friday evening.
The Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office said Sunday that Johntae Hudson of St. Paul died of multiple gunshot wounds just before 8 p.m. Friday at the mall in Bloomington, Minnesota.
Police arrested five teenagers in connection with the shooting at a home in St. Louis Park, a Minneapolis suburb, on Saturday. Police Chief Booker Hodges said two of the teens are 18 and three are 17. Hodges said one of the older teens was the shooter but another also may have opened fire.
The chief told the Star Tribune on Sunday that all five will be charged on suspicion of second-degree murder Tuesday.
Police say the shooting occurred after two groups of young men got in a fight in Nordstrom, a mall anchor. Police haven’t explained the relationship between the groups or detailed the dispute.
Hudson’s sister, 22-year-old Ja’Nayea Hudson, told KARE-TV on Saturday that her brother was trying to get his own place and apply for college. She said that he was going to the mall to find shoes to match a sweater for a friend’s birthday gathering and that he had been trying to avoid certain groups of young men.
“They got stuff going on, but he was trying to get away from all that,” she said.
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