After tragedy at mall ramp, a complex story emerges

Lori Peck blames no one. She owns that her nephew, Christopher Toltzman Thompson, 27, made "a lot of mistakes" on March 1, the day he drove into a Mall of America parking ramp and jumped to his death from the seventh floor.

She understands that the day was fraught with confusion, which likely explains inaccuracies in initial news reports of a "hit-and-run," which it wasn't, and of alcohol use, which she said is also untrue.

Peck wants people to know that the young man who died was not the young man she and her family knew and loved.

"People may think he was a really troubled kid who may have wanted to hurt someone on his way out," said Peck, 42, a welder and mother of two who lives in Oak Grove, Minn.

Although he was driving erratically, "we don't want him painted as a kid on a rampage," said Peck, fighting back tears. "I want to set the record straight for our family."

A clearer picture of the day is revealed in police reports Peck received three weeks after his death. Those reports include a transcript of a 911 call and witness statements. While they were painful to read, Peck has found strange comfort in knowing that her nephew seemed to be trying to do the right thing.

Peck lived with Thompson and his parents from his birth until he was 5. "When Chris was born, he was definitely the little brother I always wanted," said Peck, whose two siblings are years older. She took care of him at night so that his mother could work in the morning. "He was always smiling. Just funny. He loved animals."

Five days before he died, Thompson told Peck that he was worried about finding work and had relationship issues, "but he sounded great. He was trying out for a new band, interviewing for jobs. He said, 'I'm fine. I'm good.'"

Peck found out later that Thompson had just begun taking a new anti-anxiety medication, whose side effects may include loss of coordination, trouble concentrating, even suicidal thoughts.

About 3:45 p.m. March 1, a cabdriver called 911 to report that he'd been rear-ended at a stoplight in Bloomington. Because of language barriers with the taxi driver, the dispatcher originally reported the crash as a hit-and-run. In fact, after doing minor bumper damage, Thompson got out of his car, gave the taxi driver his insurance card and apologized, according to the taxi driver's supplemental report.

While the taxi driver said that he "might" have detected the odor of alcohol, Peck received the Hennepin County medical examiner's report last week, which found no alcohol in Thompson's system, she said. Tests showed a "slightly elevated" level of the prescription medication.

Thompson took off again, driving erratically, the taxi driver said. A police officer in an unmarked car began following him with his lights off, observing for about 30 seconds as Thompson waited at a red light about 15 feet into an intersection. Quiet observation is not uncommon, Bloomington Police Cmdr. Mark Stehlik said Wednesday. It allows officers to corroborate information and then choose a safe spot to make a traffic stop.

While grateful that no one else was hurt, Peck is haunted by many things. What if the first officer had turned his lights sooner? Would her law-abiding nephew have stopped running? What if Thompson hadn't been taking an anti-anxiety medication?

"I try not to blame the prescription," Peck said, "but if he'd had clarity in the moment ... he didn't have clarity."

Mostly, she wonders what if she had gone to see him the Saturday before that awful Monday as she promised, before "stuff came up." Would she have noticed that her nephew was not himself?

"All of this is nit-picky details," Peck said, "but it should be accurate. I just think that, by the time he got to the top of the parking lot, he felt that he had nowhere else to go."