Man charged for shooting and killing smoke shop employee within an hour after leaving court
Elias-Kareem Hany Aly (Ramsey County Jail)
Charges have been filed against a man accused of shooting and killing a smoke shop employee in St. Paul.
Elias-Kareem Hany Aly, 21, is charged with two counts of second-degree murder for the shooting death of Abdul Arif.
A criminal complaint states that Aly was in Ramsey County Court at 2:30 p.m. on Feb. 16 for gross misdemeanor gun charges connected to a May 2020 incident.
Surveillance footage showed Aly and another man then leave the courthouse in a Dodge Durango at 2:54 p.m., according to the complaint. At 3:34 p.m., police responded to reports of a shooting at Union Tobacco at 567 Stryker Avenue in St. Paul. Officers then found Arif on the ground with a gunshot wound to his chest.
Arif, a 48-year-old father of three, died after being taken to Regions Hospital.
Police spoke to a witness, another employee at the store, who said three men entered the smoke shop and that they were asked to remove their face coverings because of an ongoing issue with theft. The men then argued with staff, with one of them reportedly saying, “You don’t know this, but I’m about that life.”
The complaint states that Aly was wearing the same blue flannel shirt at the store that he was seen wearing at the courthouse. When Aly walked out of the store, he reached up and pulled down a green chime that contained a Ring camera off the door, then sat back in the Durango. The men who entered with Aly reportedly told Arif that he didn’t know them, that they could shut the store down, and to watch his tone. Arif then picked up a baseball bat and walked out with another employee to get the chime back, and that’s when Arif was shot.
Surveillance video caught footage of the shooting, according to court documents. Arif was on the driver’s side of the Durango with the baseball bat, but he did not ever raise it. The footage shows Arif fall to the ground, and the other employee retreat to the sidewalk as he tried to take a photo of the Durango with his phone while the vehicle fled. The complaint states that Arif was helped up by the other employee before he fell down again and didn’t move on his own.
Aly was arrested the next day in a traffic stop outside an apartment building he lives in. The Durango was found in an underground parking garage. One of the men who was with Aly at the time of the shooting was arrested and questioned by police, who reportedly said that “That man didn’t have to die.”
Aly declined to be interviewed but said he had been “chilling with his girl” the day of the shooting.
Aly has prior convictions of controlled substance possession and fleeing police in a motor vehicle. He also faces drive-by shooting charges for an unrelated incident that happened in June 2022, according to court documents. He is not eligible to possess firearms or ammunition.
Court records show bail was set at $2.5 million. Aly is due back in court on March 15.