Mall of America settles lawsuit over boy thrown from balcony

December 6, 2022

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Mall of America in suburban Minneapolis said Monday that it will toughen its trespassing policies as part of a settlement with the family of a boy who was severely injured when a man with a history of causing disturbances at the mall threw the child from a third-floor balcony.

Additional details of the settlement were not released by the boy’s family or the mall.

The boy, identified only as Landen, was 5 when Emmanuel Aranda threw him nearly 40 feet to the ground. Aranda, who had been banned from the Bloomington, Minnesota, mall twice in previous years, told investigators that when went there “looking for someone to kill” after women rejected his advances. He pleaded guilty to attempted first-degree murder and was sentenced to 19 years in prison for the attack on Landen.

The family alleged in a lawsuit filed last year that mall security should have prevented Aranda from “prowling” at the building without an officer following him closely. The lawsuit alleged that the mall and its security detail knew about previous “violent, aggressive, and erratic” behavior that Aranda had displayed at the shopping center.