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Crime, Law and Justice
Matt Sepic
Minneapolis

Prosecutors drop shelter attack charges against ‘misidentified’ suspect

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The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office on Tuesday dismissed charges against a man accused of attacking women who lived at a north Minneapolis homeless shelter after police misidentified the suspect.

In a statement, prosecutors said a man arrested Friday was not the person who pistol whipped two women outside St. Anne’s Place on Sept. 5 and fired a shot into an unoccupied car during a dispute over street parking.

Investigators informed prosecutors of the error “right away,” the Hennepin County Attorney's Office added.

In a separate statement, the Minneapolis Police Department said that the man shares “several physical characteristics” with a newly-identified suspect in the attack, and that the two “have a similar relationship with a witness to the assault and drive a similar vehicle.”

The department said that the new suspect is not in custody, and that the man officers originally arrested remains a suspect in an Aug. 4 incident at St. Anne’s Place.

Charges still stand against Eureka Dominique Riser, 33, who is accused of smashing the shelter’s door with a baseball bat and threatening residents.

People Serving People, which owns St. Anne’s, closed the shelter on Russell Avenue North indefinitely until repairs and safety upgrades are completed.

In a phone interview with MPR News on Monday, CEO Hoang Murphy said that the attack diminished an already tight supply of shelter beds for unhoused families.

“That means 16 families that could be served right now are not being served, and we don’t take that lightly,” Murphy said. “But we also cannot ask a family or staff to come back until it is safe to do so, until I can guarantee their safety.”

Murphy said that 54 women and children who had been staying at St. Anne’s are split between a Hennepin County shelter and the People Serving People facility in downtown Minneapolis, both of which are at capacity.