Murder Charges Filed Against Austin, MN Drive-By Shooting Suspects
Austin, MN (KROC-AM News)- The Mower County Attorney’s Office has filed murder charges against two Austin men accused of carrying out a drive-by shooting.
Austin Police responded to the report of a car striking a vacant house Friday night. Responding officers found the man driving the car dead at the scene and a man with a gunshot wound to his upper arm and a woman near the scene suffering from a gunshot wound to her abdomen.
The man and woman who survived the apparent shooting were taken to an Austin hospital before being transported to Rochester for further care. The woman struck by the gunfire told police she and the other occupants of the car were following 28-year-old Chan Oman and 23-year-old Manamany Abella to pick something up.
The woman reported the SUV, driven by Oman, pulled up to the side of the car and the two men began shooting at the car. The man and woman were taken from the scene in critical but stable condition. Court documents say investigators found about a dozen spent shell casings and a live round near the crash scene.
The charges say a man on a motorcycle witnessed the crash. He said he followed the SUV after it fled the scene of the alleged shooting at a high rate of speed. The man said he cut off his pursuit after the occupants of the SUV fired multiple gunshots at him before entering the eastbound lanes of I-90.
Austin Police reported both Oman and Abella were arrested at different times on Saturday. The men were arranged on charges of second-degree murder, second-degree murder drive-by shooting, two counts of second-degree attempted murder drive-by shooting and a drive-by shooting count.
A Mower County Judge set Abella’s conditional bail at $750,000 while Oman’s conditional bail was set at $500,000. Court records indicate Abella’s criminal history includes multiple convictions for felony drug offenses and being a convicted felon in possession of firearms and/or ammunition. The men are due back in court on June 26.
