More teens charged in ambush during game of Fridley basketball player with tire iron and fists

Five teenagers have now been charged with participating in the bloody ambush of a Fridley High School varsity basketball player during a game this week at Robbinsdale Cooper High School.

Through Friday, charged in Hennepin County District Court with second-degree assault and second-degree riot are:

Ayub Mohamed Ali, 19, of Circle Pines; Mubashir Nasir Ali, 18, of Minneapolis; a 16-year-old boy from Maple Grove; and two 18-year-olds from Brooklyn Park, Yahya Abdul Khanyare and Dursa Muktar Mohamed, who also is charged with fleeing police.

The four adults remain jailed in lieu of bail amounts ranging from $20,000 to $100,000 ahead of court appearances in the coming weeks.

A warrant has been issued for the 16-year-old’s arrest “due to public safety risks and concerns about ongoing violence,” the juvenile petition filed against him read.

Legal counsel for the defendants are not yet listed in court records.

The attack occurred Tuesday shortly after the game began between the Fridley Tigers and host Hawks. The game was postponed.

No one in law enforcement has offered any insight about a motive for the assault.

“This was not random,” Hoyt said. “We know why it happened,” but the chief declined to elaborate.

None of the parties involved were Cooper High students or enrollees in the Robbinsdale Area Schools, according to a letter from the district to Cooper families.

The suspects were not affiliated with Fridley Public Schools, Superintendent Brenda Lewis said.

School resource officers on site took immediate action, and coaches moved student athletes to safety, the letter read. The gym was placed on lockdown, and spectators remained inside until it was lifted, the letter continued.

Fridley Schools says it will now be reviewing and strengthening safety measures for both home and away games to ensure the well-being of its student athletes, Lewis said in a statement.

According to the charges against the five:

Police arrived at the high school at 8230 47th Av. N. in New Hope, where the basketball player was seriously injured by a blow to the top of the head with a tire iron and punches. The 16-year-old then tried in vain to stab him with a knife.

The victim was taken by ambulance to a hospital, where six stitches were needed to close his head wound. Officials have yet to release his identity.

School video captured five or six males arriving at the school in a car before the game. They spent several minutes outside, then in the lobby “talking and conspiring together,” the criminal complaint read.

They went into the school, avoiding the ticket entry area, and walked to Fridley’s bench. Khanyare ran toward the victim and struck him with the tire iron.

“The victim was totally unaware the attack was about the happen,” the complaint continued.

Several others joined in the assault, “attempting to strike and hit the victim with fists and other weapons,” the charges noted. Ali and other accomplices stood near the exit, appearing to act as lookouts.

The five suspects got back in the car, and sped from the school with Dursa Mohamed behind the wheel. While fleeing from pursuing police, the car crashed on a nearby entry ramp, and everyone in the vehicle was arrested.