Four people robbed and beat a deaf man in downtown St. Paul this week, prosecutors charged.
The 35-year-old victim, who told police he knew his attackers from the Dorothy Day Center, was sent to the hospital with a deep laceration on the back of his head and bruises.
The criminal complaints, filed Thursday, give the following account:
On Tuesday, shortly before 9 p.m., officers responded to Wells Fargo Place on Wabasha Street about an assault. A man "was bloodied and frantically using his hands to sign," the complaint said. Officers, who determined he is deaf, used a pen and paper to communicate with him. He said that he had been assaulted and that one of the attackers stole his phone.
Police watched surveillance video.