Three indicted on arson charges in fires at Minneapolis Target HQ during riot over false rumor

Three peo­ple were in­dict­ed Thurs­day in con­nec­tion with fires set in­side Target's world head­quar­ters in down­town Minneapolis amid rioting over a false rumor that a Black man had been killed by police.

In­dict­ed on Thurs­day in U.S. District Court with con­spir­a­cy to com­mit ar­son are Shador T.C. Jackson, 24; Victor D. Edwards, 31, of St. Paul; and Le­roy L.P. Williams, 34, of Minneapolis.

De­ten­tion hear­ings have yet to be sched­uled. Jackson and Williams are in cus­to­dy, while Edwards is re­sid­ing at a half­way house, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

Ac­cord­ing to the fed­er­al in­dict­ments and oth­er court docu­ments:

Ar­son and loot­ing erupt­ed on the evening of Aug. 26, when Eddie Frank Sole Jr., 38, fa­tal­ly shot him­self on Nicollet Mall short­ly af­ter he was sus­pected of shooting and killing another man. Sole's su­i­cide sparked a false ru­mor that po­lice had killed him.

Edwards, Jackson and Williams went to the Target head­quar­ters on Nicollet, where doz­ens of oth­ers had gath­ered and start­ed riot­ing.

Jackson is accused of using a con­struc­tion sign to break through a glass door of the build­ing. The three then joined oth­ers and went in­side, where Jackson in­ten­tion­al­ly set a fire on a count­er in the mail­room and Edwards add­ed a li­quid ac­cel­er­ant.

Jackson also at­tempt­ed to light a se­cond fire in the mail­room atop card­board box­es using a light­er and a bot­tle of ig­nit­a­ble li­quid.

Edwards, Jackson and Williams along with oth­ers fled out the same door they en­tered. Williams allegedly re­turned, how­ever, and at­tempt­ed to start a fire in­side the build­ing's en­trance.

Williams' at­tor­ney, Mat­thew Mankey, main­tained his cli­ent's in­no­cence, say­ing Thurs­day "that's not what he was doing."

Mankey add­ed that Williams "was hav­ing an es­pe­cial­ly tough day" be­cause the man who was shot and killed earlier in the day was his step­fa­ther, 61-year-old Eddie George Gordon.

At­tor­neys for Jackson and Edwards were not avail­able to re­spond to the al­le­ga­tions.

All three de­fend­ants have fel­o­ny re­cords in Minnesota. Jackson has con­vic­tions for se­cond-de­gree as­sault and drug pos­ses­sion. Edwards was con­victed in 2016 in Hennepin County for third-de­gree crim­i­nal sex­ual con­duct. He's also been con­victed of theft, drug pos­ses­sion and child en­dan­ger­ment. Williams has been con­victed seven times for theft, twice for il­legal pos­ses­sion of a fire­arm in public, and once each for bur­gla­ry and re­ceiv­ing sto­len prop­er­ty.

Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482