Hopkins Man Charged with Burglary, Domestic Assault

A Hopkins man is accused of kicking in his ex-girlfriend’s door in Burnsville last weekend, slamming her against the wall and choking her.

Shane Michael Hejl, 24, is charged with two felonies: second-degree burglary, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $20,000 fine, and domestic assault by strangulation, which has a maximum penalty of three years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

Hejl also faces a lesser charge of interfering with a 911 call, which carries a maximum penalty of a year in jail and a $3,000 fine.

The woman told Oct. 14 that Hejl had kicked in her front door, assaulted and strangled her, according to the criminal complaint. She said she'd filed for a protection order against Hejl, but it had not yet been served on him. 

The woman said Hejl arrived at her apartment at about 11 p.m., and she woke up to the sound of him kicking in her door. She said she told him to leave and he began yelling and swearing, then grabbed her and pushed her to the ground.

Still lying on the ground, she called 911, Hejl grabbed her phone and hung up while it was still ringing, the complaint says.

The victim said Hejl then picked her up, slammed her against the wall and began choking her. When he left, she locked the door and tried to find her phone. A 911 dispatcher called her back, and she told the dispatcher what had happened.

Police noted that the door frame on her apartment showed new damage, along with existing damage that had been painted over. The victim had red marks on her shoulder and neck, according to the complaint.

The woman told police that Hejl ran toward a nearby gas station and described his appearance, according to the charging documents. When police arrived in the station’s parking lot, they saw a man matching Hejl’s description making a phone call inside the store.

When police entered the store and made eye contact with Hejl, he quickly moved toward the back of the store, the officer wrote in the report. After repeated orders from police, Hejl stopped and was arrested.

Hejl said the woman had picked him up and driven him to her apartment and that they had argued, according to the complaint. He told officers he was eventually able to “push his way” out of the apartment. He said he wasn’t sure how the apartment door got broken but he thought she might have kicked in the door herself, the complaint says.

He is free on a $50,000 bond. An omnibus hearing in his case is scheduled for Nov. 14 in Dakota County District Court in Hastings.