Violent felon charged with firing gun at St. Paul officer during late-night pursuit

A man with a violent criminal past was charged Wednesday with leading police on a late-night chase over several St. Paul streets, squeezing off a flurry of rounds from a stolen rifle that barely missed an officer and evading capture until he crashed into a parked vehicle, according to charges filed Wednesday.

Samuel Cal Flowers, 26, of St. Paul, was charged in Ramsey County District Court with second-degree attempted murder, first-degree assault, illegal gun possession and numerous other counts in connection with the pursuit Monday.

Flowers remains jailed in lieu of $10 million bail ahead of a court appearance Thursday afternoon. Court records do not yet list an attorney for him.

“We are grateful that this person was brought into custody and that no one in our community, none of our officers and even [the suspect wasn’t injured],” said Police Chief Axel Henry during a Tuesday news conference. “But I would say we’re very, very lucky.”

Squad dash camera video released by the police department Wednesday shows the officer initiating the pursuit with Flowers along a snowy city street with his emergency lights activated.

“He’s taking off...Rondo and Farrington,” the officer radioed seconds before a series of pops could be heard as the shots were filed through the fleeing vehicle’s rear window.

“Shots fired, shots fired, they’re firing at me!” the officer radioed as he continued pursuit while the fleeing vehicle swerved away.

Flowers’ criminal history includes a drug-related first-degree assault conviction stemming from when he shot a man in the back in St. Paul in 2016. As a juvenile, he was convicted of a felony weapons offense in 2015 in St. Paul.

He also has a case pending in Ramsey County with charges of being a felon in possession of a gun and ammunition during a traffic stop in St. Paul.

According to the latest criminal complaint:

An officer spotted a car going 47 miles per hour in a 30 mph zone on University Avenue. Flowers made multiple turns, disobeyed stop signs and accelerated while being aware that police were following him. The officer pulled over and shared the car’s license plate number with others on patrol.

Another officer spotted the car but lost sight of it as it went north on Western Avenue. Thanks to fresh tire tracks in the snow, the officer found the car parked on Ravoux Street.

The officer turned on his emergency lights and pushed the car into another vehicle in front in an effort to trap Flowers, who broke free and drove off.

As the second officer kept up his pursuit on St. Anthony Avenue from a distance of about 60 yards, Flowers fired shots from the moving car at the police squad. The officer’s squad video recorded the sound of 17 shots being fired at him within 35 seconds. The gunfire flattened a front squad tire.

The pursuit continued, now with three St. Paul squads tailing, until Flowers hit a parked pickup truck in the 800 block of Fuller Avenue where officers arrested him. Officers found suspected cocaine in his possession and an assault-style rifle on the front passenger seat. The gun, stolen in 2018 in Minneapolis, was loaded with armor-piercing ammunition.

Flowers refused to have his blood or urine tested for impairment, and he declined to speak with police.

Staff writer Nicole Norfleet contributed to this report.