Shootout in St. Paul grocery store parking lot stemmed from 2019 homicide, charges say

Mara H. Gottfried, Pioneer Press
Updated ·4 min read

Bullets from a shootout in a St. Paul grocery store parking lot grazed a 16-year-old and damaged a window of the store where a Girl Scout was inside and packing cookies, according to charges filed Tuesday.

Officers responded to the Cub Foods on the East Side about 10:45 a.m. Sunday about reports of men shooting at each other in the parking lot. They’d left in different cars.

Loss prevention staff at the store on Clarence Street off Maryland Avenue showed officers eight .40 caliber casings in an aisle near the front entrance.

Rounds struck two vehicles in the lot and shattered their windows. Officers found five .22 caliber spent rounds and six 9mm rounds on the pavement near the store.

“Surveillance video showed multiple people not involved in the incident were in the parking lot at the time of the shootout,” according to a criminal complaint and juvenile petition. “One person with a walker had to hustle into the store when the shooting erupted.”

One person said he was shot at while standing on the passenger side of his cousin’s car. He felt a bullet pass his head and dove to the ground. A 16-year-old girl later sought medical treatment because a bullet grazed her in the parking lot shootout, the complaint said.

Including the teen, there have been 21 people injured in shootings in St. Paul this year, one less than as of March 19 last year, according to St. Paul police. There had been 39 victims of nonfatal shootings during the same timeframe in 2022.

Surveillance video

Surveillance video in Sunday’s shooting showed a 19-year-old, identified as Marquan Husten-Myles, and a 17-year-old leave Cub, the complaint said. A man exited a car, walked toward them and shot at them.

Husten-Myles ran and fired several rounds at the shooter, the complaint said. The 17-year-old is also accused of firing several rounds at the man. Husten-Myles and the teen returned to their car and drove away.

A Cub Foods spokesperson said Tuesday “the safety and well-being of Cub’s employees and customers is our top priority” and they said management is working with police in their investigation.

Police found the car that Husten-Myles and the teen left in. It was parked behind Husten-Myles’ apartment about two miles away. There were two fresh bullet holes on the car’s driver side.

Husten-Myles was at the apartment, along with the 17-year-old. The teen said Husten-Myles picked him up and they went to Cub Foods to speak to Husten-Myles’ mother. He said he didn’t know anything about the shooting.

Husten-Myles told police he was shot at in the parking lot and “said the dispute stems from a St. Paul homicide from 2019,” according to the complaint.

Police obtained a search warrant for the apartment. In a bedroom with jackets matching those worn by Husten-Myles and the 17-year-old, police found two firearms in a plastic bin: a .22 caliber and a gun loaded with rounds matching a 9mm casing found outside the store, the complaint said. The gun with 9mm ammunition didn’t have a serial number and had a 30-round extended magazine.

Police said Tuesday they continue to investigate who the third shooter in the Cub parking lot was.

Previous convictions

Husten-Myles’ attorney said another attorney represented Husten-Myles at his first court appearance and he hadn’t yet received the file to review.

The Ramsey County attorney’s office charged Husten-Myles with two counts of possession of a firearm and one count of possession of ammunition by an ineligible person. He isn’t allowed to possess firearms or ammunition because of a juvenile conviction for first-degree aggravated robbery.

The 17-year-old is charged with second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon, reckless discharge of a firearm and possession of a firearm by a person under the age of 18. He is on probation for a juvenile conviction of possession of a firearm by an ineligible person and was previously on probation in another case for the same offense, according to the current juvenile petition.

Husten-Myles has another case that’s ongoing in the court system. He was charged last year with being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition, auto theft and fleeing police in a vehicle in a February 2023 case. A pre-trial hearing was already scheduled in that case for April.

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