Abdullah Arif, a 48-year-old Middle Eastern/Arab man from Stillwater who owned a tobacco shop on Saint Paul’s west side, was shot and killed after confronting a masked man who had entered his store. On the afternoon of February 16, 2023, shortly after 3:30 p.m., the masked man refused Arif’s request to remove the balaclava, pulled down the store’s door chime, and left. Arif followed him onto the 500 block of Stryker Avenue, where the man immediately shot him in the torso.

Officers found Arif on the ground and medics transported him to Regions Hospital, where he later died; his death was the third homicide in Saint Paul that year. Police arrested 21-year-old Elias Kareem Hany-Aly in Minneapolis the next day on suspicion of murder; authorities reported he had been in a Ramsey County courtroom about 40 minutes before the shooting for a separate firearms hearing and was on conditional release.

Does anyone have information about Arif’s shop, the 500 block of Stryker Avenue that afternoon, or about the confrontation?