Two young St. Paul women are accused of beating up a woman they attempted to rob at the Snelling Avenue light-rail station in St. Paul this weekend.
Trayonna Ronita Johnson, 18, and Antonia Brittany Wren, 19, were each charged Tuesday with one count of first-degree aggravated robbery for the incident, according to criminal complaints filed against them in Ramsey County District Court.
The woman they allegedly assaulted called Metro Transit police around 7:30 p.m. Sunday to report that she had just been attacked.
She told officers she had been traveling eastbound on the Green Line when she exited at the Snelling Avenue station. Once she stepped off the train, she said a young woman standing with a group of other youths yelled something offensive to her, charges say.
Taken aback, she asked the teen, “Excuse me?” according to the complaint.
Seconds later, she said another teen in the group grabbed her by the hair and pulled her to the ground. Then others started kicking and punching her. One “stomped on her head,” she told officers, the complaint said.
The teens also allegedly tried to steal her cellphone but were unable to get it out of her hand, she said.
Based on her description of her assailants, officers suspected the group may have been the same one involved in an earlier robbery at the U.S. Bank Stadium light-rail station in downtown Minneapolis. They identified Johnson and Wren as suspects.
Video footage from the Green Line surveillance system reportedly showed Wren and Johnson assaulting a woman on the Snelling Avenue platform before fleeing on a train, the complaint said.
Later interviewed by officers, the two allegedly acknowledged that they had been involved in an incident with a woman at a light-rail station but denied attempting to rob her.
Neither could be reached for comment.
Johnson and Wren are scheduled for initial hearings on the charges on April 12.