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.
Murder charges: Man shot St. Paul tobacco shop employee after rebuffing order to remove his mask
One coworker explained to police that shop staff need to see customers' faces in case of theft.
February 21, 2023 at 7:36PM
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.
According to surveillance video, Arif "never raised the baseball bat as if to hit anything with it," the charges read.
A caller told police who killed Arif. Officers located the SUV in a parking garage below the Uptown apartment building where Aly lives. He came out of the building as the SUV was being towed by police. He went back in the building, came out a different exit and got in a car. Police stopped the car and arrested him.
One of the men with Aly during the shooting told police later, "That man didn't have to die."
Aly's criminal history in Minnesota includes convictions for fleeing police in a vehicle and felony drug possession.
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