A 20-year-old man was charged Tuesday with firing several rounds from a handgun outside a Blaine shopping mall, where weekend shoppers and employees inside were ordered to take cover.
Man charged with firing gun outside Northtown Mall, where people inside were ordered to take cover
Before his capture, the man turned inside out the pants he had on at the time of the shooting, according to the charges.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
September 10, 2024 at 9:58PM
Maurice Eugene Neylon, 20, of Anoka was charged in Anoka County District Court with two felonies: discharging a dangerous weapon and reckless threats of violence in connection with the gunfire midafternoon Sunday outside the Northtown Mall.
Neylon was arrested in Spring Lake Park on the day of the shooting and remains jailed in lieu of $1 million bail ahead of a court appearance on Oct. 7. His attorney was not immediately available to respond to the the allegations.
According to the criminal complaint:
Police were alerted to the gunfire shortly after 3 p.m. at the mall just off Hwy. 10 and east of Hwy. 47. At first believing the shooting occurred inside the mall, law enforcement instructed people inside to seek refuge in stores and clear the hallways.
Moments later, the gunfire was determined to have occurred outside the mall, with at least one bullet hitting a display case inside.
Mall security video captured Neylon exiting the mall on his own along with four others and going to the parking lot where the shots were fired.
Officers collected eight 9-millimeter bullet casings in the the parking lot.
State Patrol spotted Neylon running to a vehicle in Spring Lake Park. He had a 9-millimeter handgun on him that was in the “locked back” position, indicating it possibly had been fired recently. Its magazine was empty.
While in the custody of a state trooper, Neylon asked whether the incident was being treated as a “mass shooting,” the complaint read.
The pants Neylon had on at the time of his arrest did not appear to match what mall video showed him wearing around the time of the shooting. Investigators determined that he had turned his pants inside out.
A law enforcement test firing of Neylon’s gun resulted in it being a match with four of the casings seized from the parking lot. The other four came from a different gun.
The other four people who ran from the mall have yet to be identified as of late Tuesday afternoon.
Neylon’s criminal history in Minnesota includes a threats-of-violence conviction from a case filed in 2022.
No arrests have been made in connection with the incident in the Hamline-Midway neighborhood.
