The Latest on a 5-year-old child injured in an apparent attack at Minnesota’s Mall of America (all times local):
4:15 p.m.
Police in Minnesota say a 5-year-old boy suffered life-threatening injuries when he was pushed or thrown from a third-floor balcony at the Mall of America.
Witnesses say the boy’s mother was screaming and asking others to pray for her son.
Tiny Hailey of Burnsville, Minnesota, tells the Star Tribune she was walking with her husband on the mall’s first floor when she heard screams. Hailey says the mother appeared to be in shock and “didn’t know what to do,” and that “Nobody was helping her.”
Witnesses say a suspect ran away and was arrested at the mall’s transit station. The 24-year-old man from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area is being held at the Bloomington Police Department.
The boy was taken to a hospital. His condition is unknown.
Police say the suspect apparently does not know the victim or the victim’s family.
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2:15 p.m.
A witness says a woman screamed that her child was thrown from a balcony at the Mall of America in Minnesota.
Brian Johnson told WCCO-TV the woman was screaming, “Everybody pray, everybody pray. Oh my God, my baby, someone threw him over the edge.”
Johnson says the woman was screaming that her child was thrown from a third-floor balcony at the Bloomington, Minnesota, mall. The child landed on the first floor on Friday morning.
Police say the child is 5 years old. The police chief says the child suffered “significant injuries” and was taken to a hospital.
A suspect was arrested at the mall. Police don’t think there is any relationship between the man and the child or the child’s family. Authorities don’t know a motive.
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12:55 p.m.
Police in Minnesota say they’ve arrested a 24-year-old man in an incident in which a child may have been pushed or thrown from a balcony at the Mall of America.
Bloomington Police Chief Jeffrey Potts says witnesses told police that the child may have fallen from the mall’s third level to the first floor on Friday morning. Potts says officers gave first aid but the 5-year-old child suffered “significant injuries” and had been taken to a hospital.
Potts says the suspect took off running right after the incident but was quickly found and arrested at the mall.
He says police don’t think there is any relationship between the man and the child or the child’s family. He says police don’t have an idea about possible motive.
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12:46 p.m.
Police in Minnesota say they’re investigating an incident at the Mall of America in which a child was reportedly thrown from a third-floor balcony.
Police in Bloomington tweeted that a 5-year-old child suffered injuries and was being treated at a hospital Friday. Police didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking details about the incident.
The Star Tribune reports that the child was being treated at Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis.
