Several felony assault charges were filed Wednesday against a 28-year-old man accused of shooting at two National Guard members stationed in north Minneapolis during a drive-by assault Sunday.
The charges in Hennepin County District Court against Andrew Thomas — three counts of first-degree assault against a peace officer, two counts of second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon and a illegal weapons possession count — are in addition to a felony weapons possession count filed Monday in U.S. District Court.
Thomas, who court records list with a Minneapolis or a Chicago address, was arrested Sunday night in his SUV and booked Monday into the Hennepin County jail and then transferred into federal custody the next day.
A juvenile female, whose age was not given, that he had just met at a Twin Cities hotel was in the vehicle and told officers where to find a gun in the SUV, according to the latest charges.
His attorney in the federal case, Manny Atwal, said, “I just got the case [and] will be looking into the allegations soon.” Thomas has yet to secure legal counsel for the state case, Atwal said.
The soldiers were wounded near N. Penn Avenue and West Broadway while on patrol as part of Operation Safety Net, a joint effort among the Minneapolis Police Department, Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office, the state of Minnesota and local jurisdictions that have been activated in response to protests of police violence in the Twin Cities.
No motive was addressed in either charging document.
According to the criminal complaint filed in Hennepin County:
About 4:20 a.m. Sunday, Thomas fired several shots from an SUV at two Minneapolis squad cars and three Guard vehicles. The SUV sped off.
One soldier in a Humvee was injured by broken glass; the other in the same vehicle sustained “superficial injuries,” the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
One Guard member said the gunfire was coming from the driver of the SUV. Discharged cartridge casings were collected by law enforcement at the scene.
Thanks to city-operated video surveillance, law enforcement saw several “unique characteristics” of the SUV, among them a rear window that was dirty other than where the wiper blade sweeps, a poorly illuminated rear license plate, “extremely tinted” windows, a black bike rack on the roof and a white sticker in the front window.
About 9:50 p.m. that same day, officers on routine patrol spotted the SUV near S. 6th Street and S. Cedar Avenue. The driver took off and made evasive movements before he pulled into a parking lot at 2100 S. Bloomington Avenue.
The juvenile with Thomas told officers that he took a gun out of the center console and put it somewhere farther back in the SUV.
She said she only knew Thomas by the name “Black” and they met the week before at a St. Paul hotel. She said they were going to get food when patrol officers spotted the SUV.
A police search of the SUV turned up a semiautomatic handgun in a purse in the front passenger area, ammunition, two handgun magazines, a bindle of suspected illicit drugs, two discharged cartridge casings and a .22-caliber revolver with an obliterated serial number under a pile of men’s clothes in the back of the vehicle.
Police ballistics testing pointed to the semiautomatic handgun being used to shoot the Guard members.
Thomas is barred from legally possessing a gun based on a 2017 felony assault conviction in Hennepin County. In that case, he was at a Minneapolis light rail station, picked out someone at random and broke the victim’s nose with a punch.
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