County challenging parental rights of Timberwolves' Malik Beasley, wife

Hennepin County officials want to have the 19-month-old son of Minnesota Timberwolves player Malik Beasley put under court-ordered protection citing the felony weapons and drug charges filed last month against the boy's parents as well as new evidence of possible maltreatment.

A petition filed this week in District Court by the county's Human Services and Public Health departments challenges the parental rights of Malik Beasley and wife Montana Yao and levels further allegations against the couple growing out of an altercation the 23-year-old basketball player had in late September with a family outside his Plymouth home.

Beyond the charges filed last week accusing Beasley of aiming a rifle at a couple and their teenage daughter in an SUV outside his house, where a large stash of marijuana and other guns were seized by police, the petition also says Beasley was caught on indoor video surveillance pointing a rifle "in the general direction" of his son in the garage that same day.

The son remains in parental custody as a judge weighs the petition's allegations and whatever response to the filing the parents might offer.

Beasley was charged in District Court with drug possession and threats of violence. Yao, a 23-year-old Instagram model, was charged with a felony drug count.

Messages have been left for Beasley, Yao or their representatives seeking comment about the child protection petition and the earlier criminal charges.

According to the charges against Beasley and Yao, a couple was on the annual Parade of Homes tour Sept. 26 with their daughter and pulled up in an SUV to the 6,600-square-foot home that Beasley and Yao rent but saw it was roped off. While they were stopped to figure out the next home they would visit, Beasley tapped on the vehicle's window and pointed a rifle at them and shouted at them to get off his property.

Beasley trained his rifle at the SUV as it drove away from the home off Mooney Lake that the builder recently had on the market for $2.2 million, the charges read.

The child protection petition said police seized from the home a loaded semi­automatic shotgun on an office floor and "accessible to [the boy]," a handgun, a rifle, more than 1 ¾ pounds of marijuana, three notebooks suspected of being drug ledgers, nine dextroamphetamine pills and various firearms supplies.

Police say the shotgun was reported stolen in Denver, the same city where Beasley played for the Nuggets until he was traded to the Timberwolves in February. He averaged 20.7 points in 14 games with the Wolves last season.

Beasley is without a contract for next season, and Timberwolves management has yet to address whether it is interested in keeping him. A team statement soon after charges were filed said that "we take these allegations seriously and will let the legal process run its course."

Along with all the incriminating items seized from the home, the petition also revealed that days after the incident, a county child protection investigator met with Beasley and Yao, who agreed to a safety plan for their son that called for them to not use illicit drugs and not have guns in the house unless locked in a safe.

However, drug tests administered two weeks later turned up the active ingredient of marijuana in both parents, amphetamines in Beasley's system and recent sedative use by Yao, according to the petition.

Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482