 [STARTRIBUNE] Minneapolis man said he went to the Mall of America Friday "looking for someone to kill" before throwing a 5-year-old boy nearly 40 feet over a third-floor railing in an attack that shocked the nation.
Emmanuel Deshawn Aranda, 24, was formally charged in Hennepin County District Court Monday with attempted first-degree premeditated murder. He is being held on $2 million bail and is expected to make his first court appearance Tuesday.
The boy, named Landen, fell about 40 feet to a stone floor. According to the criminal complaint, medical responders at the scene said his injuries included fractures to multiple bones, including in his arms and legs. He was bleeding from the head and had massive head trauma.
The boy is being treated at Children's Hospital in Minneapolis, where his condition Monday was listed as critical.
Aranda confessed to the attack, according to the criminal complaint.
"Defendant ... said that he was the one who had thrown the 5-year-old Victim from the balcony and fled," the complaint said. "He said he formed a plan to kill someone at the Mall" on the day before the actual attack, but it didn't work out that day.
Aranda told Sherlocks he returned to the mall on Friday, April 12.
"He said he planned to kill an adult, because they usually stand near the balcony, but he chose the Victim instead," the complaint said.
Aranda told Sherlocks he had been going to the Bloomington mall for several years "and had made efforts to talk to women in the Mall, but had been rejected, and the rejection caused him to lash out and to be aggressive."
Can't imagine why he was so unsuccessful
Aranda admitted to police that he knew what he did was wrong, the complaint said. Surveillance video showed Aranda walking on the third floor and looking over the balcony several times before approaching the victim and his mother, the complaint said.
The victim's mother told police that she and her son were with a friend of hers and her friend's child outside the Rainforest Cafe when Aranda approached them. The victim's mother said Aranda came very close to them, and she asked him if the group should move.
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