Police: Trio peppers many west metro buildings with BBs, other items and tallies $108K in damage

A trio roamed the west metro suburbs for months and peppered a synagogue and numerous other buildings with BBs and various forms of ammunition, ringing up more than $100,000 in damage, officials said Friday.

Investigators connected the suspects to 89 reported incidents since August in Minnetonka, Plymouth, Eden Prairie, Hopkins, St. Louis Park and Golden Valley, according to Minnetonka police. Most of the cases involved broken windows from BBs and metal hardware nuts.

To date, the damage totals more than $108,000 to homes, businesses and religious sites. The dollar amount is expected to rise as investigators continue collecting estimates in more than half the cases.

On Monday, Minnetonka searched a home in the 1700 block of Yorkshire Avenue S. where one of the suspects lives and seized an extensive amount of incriminating evidence, according to a search warrant affidavit filed in Hennepin County District Court.

Collected from the home, among other things, were two packages of marbles, four slingshots and ammunition, nuts and a screw, methamphetamine and a scale with suspected drug residue.

A Minnetonka police crime analyst combined damage patterns, mapping and other evidence to identify the suspects.

A 25-year-old man, his 22-year-old girlfriend and his 25-year-old male friend were jailed Monday a few hours after the search only to be released Wednesday without charges as Minnetonka police and the Hennepin County Attorney's Office continue investigating. The Star Tribune generally does not identify suspects before they are charged.

Many of the buildings targeted sit along the frontage road of Interstate 394, near Cedar Lake Road and Hopkins Crossroad and on Ridgedale Drive. They include the Lux and Avidor apartments, where surveillance video captured a small, light-colored car in both locations that is registered to the female suspect.

The Adath Jeshurun Congregation's synagogue in Minnetonka was vandalized on Sept. 30 and again on Nov. 28. Surveillance video from the second incident recorded two males on skateboards. During the search of the Yorkshire Avenue home, a long skateboard was seized.

A woman contacted Minnetonka police and reported finding 20 BBs in her backyard, and "her dog was trying to eat them," the filing read.

She reported that her neighbor at the home where the police search was carried out "had several cans hanging in the trees for possible target practice."

An officer responded to the scene and found marble-type BBs made for a slingshot. The officer went to the home where the cans were hung, spoke to the mother of one of the male suspects and advised her "to speak to her son about the behavior."