Scheels, employee sued over teen’s suicide in Eden Prairie store

Tucked away on the second floor of the Scheels sports emporium at Eden Prairie Center, next to the Stanley thermoses and Yeti coolers, is the area where guns and ammunition are sold. Dozens of models of rifles and handguns are available, the long guns and ammunition out in the open, the handguns under lock and key behind thick plastic cases.

In 2022, 19-year-old Jordan Markie biked to Scheels and asked to see a Taurus G2C 9-millimeter handgun. An employee unlocked the case and handed the gun to him without any safety mechanism on the weapon. Markie ran through the store, loaded the gun and died by suicide.

A lawsuit filed in Hennepin County District Court this week seeks a jury trial on claims Scheels and staff member William Ballantyne played a role in Markie’s death. It argues that Scheels should not have given Markie the handgun because Markie was clearly not 21, the legal age to buy a handgun in Minnesota, and that the readily available ammunition created an environment where a young man going through a mental health crisis was able to kill himself.

There is some uncertainty as to when and where Markie got the ammunition he used. But it was available on the shelves at Scheels and, on at least two occasions before his suicide, Markie had stolen ammunition from the store.

The lawsuit was filed by Everytown Law, Arnold & Porter, and Fuller Wallner on behalf of Sarah Van Bogart, Markie’s mother, and is seeking more than $50,000 in damages. Everytown Law is the largest legal organization in the country working to advance gun-safety laws.

“Jordan would be alive today if Defendants had taken basic, industry-standard steps pertaining to the display and sale of handguns,” the lawsuit maintains.

Calls and emails to Scheels President and CEO Steve Scheel were not returned. Requests for company data on gun sales and store policy on gun safety were declined through defense attorney Heather Marx, who said Scheels and its employees would not comment on the pending litigation.

Ballantyne was at work adjusting the scope on a shotgun inside the Eden Prairie Scheels on Tuesday when he declined to comment on the case. He is a certified inspector in the safe and proper use of firearms by the U.S. Concealed Carry Association, the National Rifle Association and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. He also teaches a Minnesota permit-to-carry certification class and a legal-use-of-force seminar at Scheels.

The company was founded in Minnesota in 1902. It has 34 locations, mostly in the Midwest, and employs more than 8,000 people.

The suit comes during an ongoing debate in America about gun violence and who bears responsibility for gun crimes. Last week the father of a 14-year-old accused of killing two teachers and two classmates at Apalachee High School in Georgia was charged with four counts of involuntary manslaughter. Prosecutors allege the father knew his son had an interest in mass shootings and in military-style rifles, which his father owned.

In Minnesota, Attorney General Keith Ellison sued Fleet Farm in 2022, accusing the retailer of repeatedly selling guns to straw buyers who resell them to violent criminals who cannot legally buy the weapons themselves. That case is working its way through the courts.

The lawsuit filed against Scheels focuses on Markie’s death and Ballantyne’s decision to give Markie the gun, but it also targets Scheels for what it says were lax internal practices. The suit contends Scheels failed by not “placing trigger locks or even plastic ties on the handgun to disable it, removing the magazine from the handgun so that it cannot be loaded with ammunition, and questioning customers to ascertain the legality of a potential sale.” It claims all of those practices are industry standards.

The lawsuit also alleges that in 2018, following a rash of mass shootings in the United States, stores like Walmart, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Field and Stream made changes to their firearm protocols, including not selling to anyone under 21. While there were calls for Scheels to follow a similar standard, “Scheels did nothing,” the suit said.

The suit casts Markie’s behavior as questionable enough that it should have raised concerns among store employees, especially when handing him a gun. Markie was fidgety and pulling on locked gun cabinets. Markie asked to use a store telephone and was told no but when he asked Ballantyne to see a handgun, Ballantyne opened the cabinet and handed it to him. The gun had no trigger lock and the magazine was ready to be loaded. Ballantyne didn’t ask to see Markie’s identification.

Markie allegedly handled the gun for about 30 seconds in front of Ballantyne before running away and killing himself. The suit says that, “Customers, including young children, ran upon hearing the shot fired. A man, three young children, and a dog stumbled upon Jordan’s body in an attempt to run and hide from the sound of the shot.”

The store was shut down for a brief period after the suicide.

The lawsuit notes firearms account for nearly one-half of suicides by young people in America, calling it “a well-known problem that plagues this country and the firearms industry in particular” and that suicide accounts for 77% of all gun deaths in Minnesota.

Markie’s mother said in a prepared statement that “Jordan was kind, artistic, and full of empathy and compassion for others. Our family misses him every single day. Far too many mothers share my pain.”

Whether Scheels and its employees bear any responsibility for that pain could now go to trial.

Minnesotans and others struggling with thoughts of suicide or other mental health crises can receive immediate help from the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988.

Stephen Montemayor contributed to this story.