ST. PAUL, Minn. (WCCO) — The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office has dropped charges against a teenager who was earlier accused of attempting to snatch a grandmother’s purse at a St. Paul Walgreens, leaving the woman with brain bleeding, a concussion and a broken pelvis.
The robbery took place two days before last Christmas on a store along Larpentur Avenue. According to a criminal complaint, an 81-year-old woman was entering when someone pulled her purse. The purse’s loop was on her shoulder, so she fell to the ground. She said the next thing she remembered was waking up in the back of an ambulance. She said nothing was taken from her.
After surveillance video of the incident was distributed to the media, a then 18-year-old man’s mother called police to turn him in. She said that she believed she recognized her son’s coat and face. She said the teen’s grandmother bought and gave him that coat, and said she was “100% sure” it was him.
Now, this week the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office says that the man’s mother no longer believes that it was him. The attorney’s office also said that cell phone evidence placed him in Richfield at the time of the incident.
“If any new information about this horrific incident comes to light, we will update the public and the police investigation is continuing,” the attorney’s office said in a statement. “It is important that the facts should always guide our decisions in the criminal justice system and not emotion. A commitment to impartial and fair investigation, and disclosure of such evidence to the defense and court is the first line of defense to ensure the integrity of our convictions and to avoid wrongful ones.”
They said that the teen is still charged with multiple robbery accounts in separate incidents in Hennepin County.
*story by CBS Minnesota
