Over the weekend, an Uber driver captured a dramatic video as he drove through a St. Paul gunfight and a man with a machete chased down bystanders shortly after he was released on zero bail.
Rolling gunfight
“Woah, that was gunfire,” an Uber driver declared after narrowly avoiding a head-on collision with a vehicle that swerved into his lane as roughly 20 shots rang out early Saturday morning. Unbeknownst to the Uber driver, he had just recorded “a gang shootout between 2-4 vehicles,” according to Pat Scott of Live on Patrol — a Facebook livestream show hosted by Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher.
“At least two participants showed up at Regions [Hospital] with gunshot wounds,” Scott revealed, per Crime Watch Minneapolis. “All [participants] were hostile and uncooperative and at least two of them promised more shootings to come,” Scott warned.
It seems the Uber driver passed between two of the suspect vehicles. “The Uber driver was northbound on White Bear near the Hayden Heights library while the southbound vehicles fired at each other around him,” Live on Patrol reports.
Machete man
Several citizens of St. Paul were victimized Saturday evening by a man wielding a machete. The assailant chased a couple through their apartment building, smashed windows and assaulted a bartender, per Crime Watch.
The suspected assailant, Daniel Kurt Vernier, 40, is a repeat violent offender who was arrested about two weeks ago on a felony warrant but promptly released on zero bail by Judge James Cunningham.
Vernier’s previous convictions include several counts of felony domestic abuse, assault and attempted burglary.
“Me and my [girlfriend] had a run in with this guy tonight,” one social media user claimed on Saturday following the incident. “We had just parked our car … and began walking back to our apartment building when we heard a man yelling … demanding that we give him a cigarette … I could tell something was off with this guy immediately and we started running towards the front door of our apartments and he began chasing us.”
The poster recounted how he and his girlfriend tried to shut the man outside, but “he caught the door as we were trying to shut it” before chasing the couple “through the first floor of the apartments.”
Fortunately, however, the duo was able to escape their assailant after “get[ting] into a locked stairwell” and closing the door before he could catch up.
“This isn’t the first time we’ve had to deal with some crazy people this winter either and after this incident we’re moving the f out of downtown St. Paul after our lease is up,” the post concludes.
