4 teens charged in shooting of Bryn Mawr Market clerk during robbery

Four teenage boys were charged Monday with the robbery and shooting of a clerk at a neighborhood market west of downtown Minneapolis.

Jayce N. Cuff, 16, and Christopher J. Doss Jr., 17, were each charged by juvenile petition with aiding and abetting first-degree aggravated robbery and second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon in connection with the holdup, which occurred about 11:30 a.m. Wednesday at the Bryn Mawr Market, on S. Cedar Lake Road just west of Penn Avenue.

The Hennepin County Attorney's Office intends to certify the oldest two for prosecution as adults.

Boys ages 14 and 15 also were charged, but their identities cannot be made public because they are younger than 16, said Wendy Burt, spokeswoman for the Hennepin County Attorney's Office. Three of the four were arrested on the day of the holdup, while the fourth was apprehended the next day.

The clerk, a 20-year-old woman working at the market during her college break, underwent surgery for gunshot wounds and is expected to survive, police said.

According to the petitions filed against Cuff and Doss:

Doss pointed a handgun at the clerk. Moments later, a 14-year-old suspect took the gun and aimed at the clerk's head as Cuff tried to open the cash register. The 15-year-old accomplice during this time was rummaging through store drawers behind the woman.

When the clerk tried to open the register, the 14-year-old hit her with the gun and "shoved the barrel of the gun into the side of the victim's head," the petition read.

The 15-year-old took the gun and shot the woman in the foot, and the 14-year-old punched her in the face. As all four ran from the store, the 15-year-old shot her in the stomach. All four got in a vehicle and fled.

That same afternoon, police found a video on social media showing all four in the same clothing worn during the robbery.

The suspects fled in a vehicle that had been taken in a carjacking in St. Paul. Police found the vehicle around the corner from the home of the 14-year-old. The three youngest were arrested that night in Minneapolis, and a handgun was seized by police. Doss was taken into custody the next day.