Fridley Teen Charged in Rogers Gas Station Robbery to Stand Trial as Adult

A Fridley teenager arrested in August after police say he robbed a Rogers convenience store at gunpoint before being tackled by a store customer will stand trial as an adult.  

Dalton James Ritchie, 17, waived certification proceedings in Hennepin County District Court and will face adult charges in the Aug. 14 incident.

Ritchie is charged with aggravated first-degree robbery, a felony with a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $35,000 fine. The charge carries a mandatory minimum sentence of three years in prison.

Rogers police were watching the SuperAmerica station on Diamond Lake Road in Rogers just after 11:30 p.m. Aug. 14 because three other SuperAmerica stations in Mounds View, Brooklyn Park and New Brighton had been robbed of money and cigarettes earlier that day, according to the criminal complaint, signed by Hennepin County Sheriff’s Detective Ramone Walton.

Police spotted a vehicle driving back and forth in front of the store. A few minutes later, two men ran from the store, one dressed entirely in black and the other in ordinary clothes.

The man who tackled Ritchie, a SuperAmerica customer, was John Dyker, a 6-foot-3, 270-pound former defensive end for the Milaca High School and Central Lakes College football teams. He said after the incident that he suspected Ritchie was “up to no good” when he walked into the store wearing a bandanna over his face.

Dyker said he was outside the store watching as Ritchie robbed a female clerk and fled the store with a paper bag full of money and a BB gun that resembled a semi-automatic handgun. He said he intended to “knock the wind out of” Ritchie; when the gun fell out of his hands. Dyker picked it up and threw it, he said.

The clerk told police that Ritchie told her he had a gun, demanded money and began to count backward from five. She said she gave him the money, and he ran from the store.

Store surveillance video showed Ritchie entering the store and pointing a black gun at the clerk. She is seen opening two different cash drawers and handing the money to Ritchie, according to the complaint.

The driver of Ritchie’s getaway vehicle, a 17-year-old Shoreview girl, told police that she knew Ritchie was robbing the SuperAmerica gas stations, the complaint says. She said her role was to drive Ritchie to the stores and wait nearby for him to return, then drive away.

Ritchie later told police that although the girl was with him during the robberies, she wasn’t involved.

Ritchie remains in Hennepin County custody on a $100,000 bond. He is scheduled to make a first appearance on the charge Nov. 28 in Hennepin County District Court.