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Liala Helal

Mark Andrew beaten with metal baton for his iPhone at Mall of America

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Mark Andrew, the runner-up candidate for Minneapolis mayor this year and former Hennepin County commissioner, was writing his new year's resolutions list at a Mall of America Starbucks when he was beaten with a metal baton for his cell phone.

Andrew, 63, bled from his mouth and head and was taken to Fairview Southdale Hospital, where he got nine stitches on his head after suffering a two-inch gash in his skull. He suffered bruises on his legs and back.

His attackers, two young women, were arrested at the scene after he was able to pin them down before mall security arrived. The Hennepin County attorney's office on Friday charged Letaija Shapree Cutler-Cain, 18, of Brooklyn Park, with two counts of aggravated robbery in the first degree and one count of assault in the second degree. Andrew said the other young woman was a juvenile.

The incident took place around 5:35 p.m. Thursday night, when a man swiped Andrew's iPhone from his table. Andrew got up to chase him but was tackled by the women at the door to the coffee shop, where they punched, scratched and beat him with the baton.

"They were extremely aggressive, and extremely violent," Andrew recalled on Friday.

Police say the thief has not been identified. The deadline to charge the juvenile attacker has been extended to Monday.

No one intervened to help Andrew until security arrived, he said, which was disconcerting and troubling. There was a lot of blood, he said. The male who stole his phone dropped it, and a Good Samaritan returned it after Andrew arrived at the hospital, he said.

It took two minutes for security to arrive, and another several minutes before Bloomington Police arrived, he added. An ambulance arrived about 40 minutes later.

The women at first told police that Andrew attacked them first, he said.

"There was never a time when I was afraid, and there was never a time when I was angry. I was just trying to detain them," Andrew said.

"I am going to follow this case personally and I'm for sure pressing charges, and I'm for sure going to find out what we can do in a rehabilitative effort to get these girls into some kind of program — to divert them back to a productive lifestyle," he added. "There's hope for everybody."