A Minneapolis man was charged Thursday with kidnapping his friend's 4-year-old son and leading police on a chase that reached speeds of 80 miles per hour, then assaulting officers as they tried to rescue the boy, according to the Hennepin County attorney's office.

Xavier Kent Fritz-Smead, 24, who was arrested Tuesday evening in Plymouth, was charged with kidnapping, fleeing police in a motor vehicle, assaulting a police officer and related charges. He is expected to make his initial appearance in Hennepin County District Court on Friday.

"As is almost always the case, the defendant in this kidnapping charge knew the boy and his family," County Attorney Mike Freeman said in a news release. "This was a terrifying time for the parents and the neighbors who saw the child taken from the back yard."

The incident started just before 5 p.m. Tuesday, when Fritz-Smead allegedly snatched the boy, the son of longtime friends, from the back yard of the boy's home in the 6100 block of Russell Avenue S. in Minneapolis.

Fritz-Smead's Toyota Camry was later spotted driving on the shoulder of Interstate 494 near Minnetonka Boulevard, triggering a chase that ended with him crashing the car into a ravine near a highway interchange in Plymouth.

Refusing officers' commands to get out of the vehicle, Fritz-Smead put the boy into a "head lock and resisted officers' efforts to pull him from the car," according to the criminal complaint.

Authorities said Fritz-Smead kicked and punched officers as they tried to arrest him, leaving one Plymouth officer with "multiple facial injuries."

The boy suffered minor scrapes and bruises, and a small welt above his eye where Fritz-Smead had hit him, the complaint said.

Libor Jany • 612-673-4064 Twitter:@StribJany