Chaotic north Minneapolis arrest yields federal fentanyl, gun charges

A 28-year-old Minneapolis man has been arrested this week and accused of possessing a handgun modified to shoot like a machine gun and a brick of fentanyl powder.

According to charges, Tyron Antwan Carter Jr. also appeared to be reaching for the firearm as police officers tried to pull him from his car during his arrest in north Minneapolis.

Carter allegedly tried to flee a liquor store parking lot as officers approached his car to carry out a search warrant. One agent smashed the driver’s side window, and other officers pulled Carter from the vehicle as he appeared to reach for an object.

According to charges, Carter told police he needed to put the car in park and falsely claimed to be wearing a seat belt. Officers said they believed Carter was reaching for a firearm before they pulled him from the car and arrested him.

Officers seized a Glock 26 9-millimeter pistol equipped with a machine gun conversion device commonly called a “switch” or “auto sear” and loaded with an extended magazine.

An agent also found purple powder pressed into a brick in a black baby bag in the vehicle’s trunk. There were also hundreds of small plastic baggies and a package of rubber gloves, which officers said are often used to handle fentanyl when packaging it.

Officers field tested powder found on a small plastic cup suspected of being used to scoop the powder and indicated it was fentanyl.

Carter was charged with one count of possession with intent to distribute controlled substances and one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

He was ordered to remain jailed after making his first federal court appearance in a brief hearing Thursday in St. Paul. Carter will return to St. Paul for a detention and preliminary hearing on Monday.

Robert Richman, an attorney for Carter, said he had just been appointed to the case Thursday and declined to comment because he hadn’t yet met with his client.

According to the charges, city, state, and federal officers were conducting a “focused enforcement detail” on July 29 aimed at patrolling areas “with high amounts of violent crime, shots fired, and possession of firearms” when they encountered Carter in his Nissan Rogue parked in the rear lot of Union Liquor on the 3200 block of Penn Ave. N.

Officers said they expected Carter to flee if approached, citing an incident a month earlier in which he engaged in a standoff with a Minneapolis police SWAT team after a woman said her daughter was being held against her will. Carter refused to come outside, and the woman eventually told SWAT to leave.

Carter has multiple convictions dating back to last year in Carver and Hennepin counties, including violating a no-contact order, making violent threats and domestic abuse, that would bar him from possessing a firearm.