A 20-year-old Brooklyn Park woman is facing a stack of felony charges in connection with a May 16 shooting in south Minneapolis that left a man wounded and ended when a suspect vehicle slammed into a marked Minneapolis police squad car. Prosecutors say they moved forward late last week after investigators pored over surveillance video, cellphone location data and evidence pulled from the car, including what they allege was a Glock equipped with an auto-sear, a device that can allow a semi-automatic pistol to fire continuously.
According to a criminal complaint, as reported by Limitless Media News, Hennepin County prosecutors have charged Angela Arroyo Hernandez, 20, of Brooklyn Park, with attempted second-degree intentional murder, drive-by shooting, possession of a machine-gun conversion device, and criminal vehicular operation resulting in bodily harm. The complaint lays out the basis for the felony counts. All charges are allegations, and Hernandez is presumed innocent unless and until she is proven guilty in court.
Conversion devices, often called “Glock switches” or auto-sears, have turned up more frequently at crime scenes across the country in recent years, creating new headaches for investigators and prosecutors. The ATF’s National Firearms Commerce and Trafficking Assessment notes rising recoveries of machine-gun conversion devices and says law enforcement agencies are expanding training so officers can spot and trace the parts and the weapons they are attached to. The ATF report highlights those trends and the national response.
What Investigators Say Happened
The criminal complaint, as described by Limitless Media News, says Minneapolis officers were on routine patrol near East 33rd Street and Park Avenue South shortly after 1 a.m. on May 16 when they heard gunfire and received a ShotSpotter alert. They then went to the 3200 block of 5th Avenue South, where they found a man suffering from at least two gunshot wounds to the chest…