BLOOMINGTON, Minnesota (AP) — A suspect wanted in connection with a deadly Mall of America shooting in December was arrested Tuesday in Georgia, police said.
Bloomington, Minnesota Police Chief Booker Hodges said during a Tuesday news briefing that the 17-year-old suspect was taken into custody by federal and state law enforcement officials in Decatur, Georgia. The suspect faces charges of second-degree murder and second-degree assault.
The Associated Press typically does not name juvenile defendants.
Johntae Hudson, 19, was killed in a shooting on December 23 at the Mall of America, the US’s largest mall in Bloomington.
Hudson was shot eight times and died during an altercation at the mall’s Nordstrom store. Witnesses, mall security guards and first responders tried to save him. Shoppers sought safety and the country’s largest mall went into lockdown on one of the final days of the holiday shopping season.
The suspect arrested Tuesday in Decatur, a suburb of Atlanta, was one of four suspects charged by Minnesota prosecutors in December. They include two other 17-year-olds and 18-year-old Taeshawn Adams Wright. Wright faces second-degree murder and second-degree assault. The two 17-year-olds were charged with second-degree rioting while armed with a dangerous weapon.
Hodges said police also arrested the teenage suspect’s mother in Golden Valley, Minnesota, on Tuesday. She was accused of backing and supporting the suspect for allegedly driving him to Georgia after the shooting.
The suspect remains in custody in Georgia pending extradition to Minnesota. The U.S. Marshals Service, the Southeast Regional Fugitive Task Force, the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office and the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office were involved in Tuesday’s arrest, WAGA-TV reported.
“This is yet another example of guns being placed in the hands of immature youth, with fatal consequences in formerly safe public places,” US Marshal Thomas Brown said in a statement, WAGA-TV reported.
