Man Who Allegedly Threw 5-Year-Old Boy From Mall Of America Balcony Had History Of Trouble At The Shopping Center

A man accused of throwing a 5-year-old boy from the third floor balcony at the Mall of America near Minneapolis is apparently no stranger to trouble at the shopping center.

Twenty-four-year-old Emmanuel Deshawn Aranda, of Minneapolis, is jailed on a suspicion of attempted homicide charge. Jail records don't list an attorney for him. He could be formally charged as early as Monday.

According to court records, Aranda has a history of misdemeanor convictions, which include two previous incidents which occurred at the Mall of America in 2015. In at least one of those cases, he got in trouble for “throwing things off of the upper level of the mall to the lower level,” according to court documents obtained by CBS station WCCO.

He was convicted of fifth-degree assault and was banned from the Mall of America for a year following that incident.

The boy seriously injured in Friday's attack remains hospitalized.

Shoppers walk through and shop at Mall Of America in Bloomington, Minnesota on October 14, 2018. A 5-year-old child plummeted three floors on April 12, 2019, after being pushed or thrown from a mall balcony, according to witnesses. Photo: Raymond Boyd/Getty Images

Bloomington Police Chief Jeffrey Potts said Sunday that the boy is "still alive and receiving care," and that the family wants privacy. Children's Hospital Minneapolis had no information to release.

Authorities haven't released the boy's name. They say he fell nearly 40 feet after a man threw him off the balcony Friday.Aranda didn't know the victim or his family, according to WILX.

A witness to the harrowing ordeal described how a woman screamed that her child was thrown from the balcony.

Brian Johnson told WCCO-TV the woman was screaming, "Everybody pray, everybody pray. Oh my God, my baby, someone threw him over the edge."

A possible motive hasn’t been released.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.