Man Charged with Fleeing Police After Eagan Shoplifting Incident

A St. Hilaire, Minn., man has been charged with two felonies after authorities say he fled police who were investigating a shoplifting incident in Eagan.

Karl Alfredo Rosillo, 30, faces a charge of being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm, which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine, and a charge of fleeing a peace officer in a motor vehicle, which has a maximum penalty of three years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

Rosillo also is charged with fourth-degree DWI and theft, both misdemeanors.

Rosillo remained in the Dakota County Jail Wednesday on an $80,000 bond. An omnibus hearing in his case is scheduled for Sept. 12 in Dakota County District Court in Hastings.

According to the criminal complaint, Eagan police were called to a store just before 7:30 p.m. Aug. 25 on a report of a shoplifting in progress.

Loss prevention officers were watching a woman and two men selecting items and putting them in a shopping cart. Eventually the two men left the store, got into a car and drove around the parking lot, and the woman – whom authorities said had loaded her purse with stolen items in a dressing room – ran from the store and jumped into the car, which sped away, the complaint says.

An officer followed the car as it pulled into the exit lanes at a fast-food restaurant nearby. The car stopped abruptly and one of the men jumped out and fled on foot; police caught him and arrested him, the complaint says.

The car’s driver was identified as Rosillo, whom police said appeared intoxicated, with bloodshot, glassy eyes, droopy eyelids and slow speech. He admitted to police that he had taken a prescription painkiller an hour earlier and consented to a blood test at the Eagan police station.

Officers who searched Rosillo’s car found an unloaded .22-caliber handgun in a shoebox in the trunk, according to the complaint. The woman with the two men, who was also arrested, told police that Rosillo got the gun from a friend in Mankato the day before, and that she saw him move it around to different spots in the car, at one point taking photos of it.

The man arrested with Rosillo told police that Rosillo had told him he had a “burner” in the car, referring to the gun.

Rosillo, a convicted felon, is prohibited by law from possessing a firearm.