A 21-year-old man was charged Tuesday with murder on accusations that he shot a store employee outside a St. Paul tobacco shop after a dispute over refusal by the man's group to remove their masks.
Elias-Kareem Hany Aly, of St. Paul, was charged in Ramsey County District Court with two counts of second-degree murder in connection with the shooting Thursday of Abdullah Arif, 48, of Stillwater, in the 500 block of Stryker Avenue on the West Side.
Aly appeared in court Tuesday morning and remains jailed in lieu of $2.5 million bail. Court records do not list an attorney for him. After his arrest, Aly declined to answer police questions about the shooting.
According to the charges:
Police were dispatched shortly after 3:30 p.m. and saw Arif on the ground at Union Tobacco with a gunshot wound to the chest. He was taken by emergency responders to Regions Hospital, where he soon died.
An ATM maintenance worker inside the shop told police that Aly and two other men came in and were told by staff to take off their masks. One employee explained that shop staff need to see people's faces because of problems with theft and other customer-related issues.
Arif made the same request to one of the three men, who left the store and grabbed a chime attached to the door that rings when someone enters. It also held a doorbell camera. The other men then warned Arif to watch his tone.
Arif grabbed a baseball bat before he and another employee exited the store in pursuit of the chime. Arif got in front of the men's SUV and ordered them to stop. Aly, in the front passenger seat, pulled out a gun and shot Arif.