St. Anthony cops hearing calls for help find a bloody suspect

St. Anthony police on Wednesday offered a harrowing report of a morning police call that began as a routine welfare check and dissolved into chaos with citizens yelling for help and a man with blood on his hands looking to fight.

The suburban Minneapolis department said it dispatched officers just before 9 a.m. in the 2600 block of 29th Avenue NE after a call of a vulnerable male frantically running around the neighborhood knocking on doors.

Officers found the man and learned he had been hurt by another man "with an edged weapon" who was inside a nearby home, according to a department statement.

When police approached the home, they found a man matching the description provided by the first victim they found. As the man walked out the front door, "officers could hear multiple people from inside the residence yelling for help" and the person "appeared to have blood on his hands and wounds to his hands," the agency said, adding that man swore at officers and told them they would have to shoot and kill him.

The man then got into a car parked in the driveway as officers yelled commands for him to get out. Seeing keys on the front passenger seat, officers tried to hit the suspect with a Taser dart.

They hit him with the dart on the second try. An officer tried to pull him from the vehicle, but the man grabbed the steering wheel and would not let go.

Police sprayed him with an unidentified aerosol "restraint" to get control and take him to custody.

Officers found three more injured victims inside the home. The four victims, including the man they first found, were taken to Hennepin Health, formerly known as Hennepin County Medical Center. Their status is not known, St. Anthony police said, adding that "an edged weapon, suspected to have been used in this incident was located on this person's front pants pocket."

The suspect was treated for minor injuries and booked on felony assault charges.