Two arrested after drug complaints - Mankato Free Press

MANKATO — Two men are facing felony charges after police responded to a report of a suspected drug deal, prompting one of the men to run and allegedly attempt to break into a mobile home in an effort to escape.

At about 6:30 p.m. Dec. 21, police received a report that drugs were being sold outside a residence in the 200 block of East Hudson Avenue.

Officers responding found 30-year-old Marlow Shelton McDonald, 30-year-old Ronald Clarence Wilson and a third man in a car. McDonald allegedly had a scale and synthetic marijuana in his lap.

As the men were being questioned, Wilson allegedly attempted to run. One officer reported Wilson attempted to "shoulder a door" on a residence before running across Serra Street toward Hudson Avenue.

The officer slipped and fell during the chase but was able to follow foot prints in the snow that circled back to a a mobile home in the 100 block of Serra Street. Wilson was arrested after he was found hiding under a deck, according to a criminal complaint filed in Blue Earth County District Court.

A person living at another residence in the 100 block of Serra Street told police Wilson had been attempting to ram his way through a door on a neighbor's mobile home. She said Wilson ran after she started yelling at him.

Wilson made a court appearance Thursday for a felony burglary charge and misdemeanor property damage and fleeing police charges. McDonald is facing a felony drug sales charge and a misdemeanor drug possession charges. The third man in the car had not been charged as of Friday.

McDonald has faced felony charges in the past for incidents in Mankato. He was sentenced to five years in prison in 2005 after he fired a gunshot into a crowd of people outside a Carney Avenue residence.

About 8 grams of cocaine and a handgun were found in McDonald's Mankato residence when it was searched in February 2011, resulting in a one-year jail sentence for a felony charge of aiding and abetting fifth-degree drug possession. Before the search, investigators had received complaints about possible drug dealing at the residence and had found small plastic bags with traces of cocaine in McDonald's garbage.