Investigators from the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD), with the help of the state's fire marshal's division and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) discovered the body, believed to be of an adult male, on the morning of Monday, July 20. They were reportedly acting on a tip when they found the burnt remains in the rubble of Max It Pawn.
The pawnshop is located just several blocks to the east of the MPD's currently shuttered 3rd Precinct, which was overrun and then burnt down by a violent mob during the worst part of the city's engineered rioting. (Related: “It's mass destruction”: Another Minnesota man charged with participating in the destruction of Minneapolis Police Department's 3rd Precinct.)
“The body appears to have suffered thermal injury and we do have somebody charged with setting fire to that place,” said John Elder, spokesman for the MPD. He added that homicide detectives will be handling the investigation from now on, and that the city's medical examiner will be releasing the identity of the victim after they have completed an autopsy, which they hope will be able to determine the precise cause and manner of the death.
Ashlee Sherrill, a spokeswoman from the ATF, declined to comment on the case they were working on with the MPD because the investigation had not been completed yet. The agency has opened several dozen other investigations of arson attacks following the rioting in Minneapolis and in neighboring Saint Paul.
“The ATF is continuing to work these arson investigations across the Twin Cities and following up on these leads as they become available,” said Sherrill.
The Star Tribune reported in early June that Minneapolis firefighters searched a liquor store nearby which also burned down after witnesses reported that a person had failed to make it out. However, the fire chief said that, due to the condition of the building, their preliminary search had to be called off. They did not find any trace of the body, and it still remains unclear whether the two reports are connected.
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Montez Terrill Lee, 25, from Rochester, Minnesota – a small city that is nearly 100 miles southeast of Minneapolis – was brought into custody on June 15 for allegedly participating in the arson attack on Max It Pawn. According to the criminal complaint filed against him, investigators from the ATF received several videos from an anonymous source that shows an arson attack being committed at the pawnshop, supposedly be Lee.
Erica H. MacDonald, U.S. District Attorney for Minnesota, said that the video they received shows a masked man, who was identified to be Lee, using a metal container to pour some kind of liquid substance throughout Max It Pawn. The liquid is presumed to be something flammable, such as gasoline.
A second video taken from the event shows Lee standing shirtless outside the now-burning pawn shop. The video also recorded him shouting “[Expletive] this place. We're gonna burn this [expletive] down.”
https://twitter.com/JimiTheMic/status/1285670618105630722
Lee appeared in court on June 16 and was given a federal arson charge for his alleged connection to the burning down of Max It Pawn, which carries with it a sentence of between five to 20 years in jail. If the city medical examiner finds that the charred body passed away due to the blaze, then this sentence can be increased to between seven to 40 years in jail.
If the death of the man is ruled to be a homicide, it would currently stand as the city's 36th murder – compared with 18 at the same time last year, representing a 100 percent increase in the city's murder rate.
This would also be the second fatality connected to the engineered rioting in Minneapolis, the first being of Calvin “Chuck” Horton, Jr., 43, who was killed by John Rieple, 59, the owner of another pawnshop, Cadillac Pawn. Rieple, who was arrested but then released without charge, alleged that Horton was looting his store when he fired upon him.
Learn and keep an eye out for what other crimes Antifa and their allies in the Black Lives Matter movement are conducting across the United States by reading the latest articles at AntifaWatch.news.
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