Charges: Teen threatened to shoot Gustavus Adolphus student before stealing her car

A Gustavus Adolphus College student was ambushed in a campus parking lot late at night by a teenager who threatened to shoot her in the head before he stole her car, according to charges.

Tayvius Sorgatz Martin, 18, of Maple Grove, was charged Monday in Nicollet County District Court with first- and second-degree aggravated robbery, simple robbery and auto theft in connection with accusations that he brandished what appeared to his victim to be an assault-style rifle while stealing her car. It happened about 2:45 a.m. Saturday.

Since February, Martin has been charged with three other crimes in the Twin Cities and beyond. Charges include auto theft and property damage, according to juvenile court records.

Martin appeared in court Wednesday and remains jailed in lieu of $25,000 bail. He had a bail hearing scheduled later in the day stemming from the campus car theft. Court records do not list an attorney for Martin.

Luc Hatlestad, spokesman for the college, said Wednesday that crimes such as these on the campus of nearly 2,000 students are “extremely rare. Nobody could recall anything like this happening recently.”

Crime data compiled by the school as federally required, covering 2020 through 2022, showed no robberies, aggravated assaults or vehicle thefts on campus.

Gustavus administration notified students and staff six hours later in an email with details of the incident, including that the student was ordered to the ground during the encounter.

According to the charges, the 21-year-old student had just parked her car in Lot A on the private school’s campus in St. Peter and was walking to her dormitory when a masked man ordered her to hand over her vehicle’s keys or be shot in the head.

The woman told police that her assailant was holding what appeared to her to be an AR-style rifle across the front of his body. The assailant then drove off in her car, and the student ran to her dormitory and contacted police.

Later that day, police in St. Peter alerted counterparts in Plymouth that the car had been spotted in the west metro suburb.

On Sunday, police in Plymouth saw the car and arrested its two occupants, one of them Martin. His accomplice, a 19-year-old man from Plymouth, was released later Tuesday without charges.

Martin’s parents told police that their son owns an AR-style airsoft rifle, a weapon that is a replica of a lethal firearm but can cause no more than minor injuries.

In early May, before he turned 18, Martin smashed in the window of a car in Cottage Grove and drove off, according to charges filed in juvenile court. He was arrested later that morning. His criminal history, all this year as a juvenile, includes a stolen vehicle charge in Stearns County and a felony damage to property charge in Hennepin County.

Gustavus Dean Charlie Potts emailed the campus community on Saturday. He wrote that “the reality is that keeping ourselves and others safe in our world can be challenging, even at a place that feels as safe as St. Peter and Gustavus usually does.”

Potts added that “in the immediate future, you will see more routine patrols by [St. Peter police] and will continue to see Campus Safety patrolling campus 24/7.”