Good News About Boy Thrown From Mall of America Balcony

Landen, 5, is back home
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 3, 2019 6:49 PM CDT
5-Year-Old Thrown From Mall of America Balcony Is Home
In this Oct. 27, 2010, file photo, an entrance to the Mall of America is seen in Bloomington, Minn.   (AP Photo/Jim Mone, File)

Nearly five months after he was thrown from a third-floor balcony at Minnesota's Mall of America, a 5-year-old boy is back home. KSTP reports the child, identified only as Landen on a GoFundMe page set up to raise money for his family, had been moved from intensive care to rehab in August. Now, the family says via an update on the GoFundMe campaign, "We are pleased to share that our son completed his inpatient rehabilitation and is now home. We are so thankful, and we rejoice in the Lord’s blessings to our family. We continue to ask that His healing powers guide us and our son’s care team as we enter the next phase of recovery, which includes continued outpatient rehabilitation for multiple injuries and adjusting to life back at home and school."

Meanwhile, court records show that Emmanuel Deshawn Aranda, the 25-year-old convicted in the April 12 attack, filed an appeal Friday. Aranda was sentenced to 19 years for attempted first-degree murder after he admitted throwing the boy over the balcony and pleaded guilty. It's not clear why he's now appealing, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports. In May, his mother told Minnesota Public Radio her son had struggled with mental health issues since childhood, and that a few days before the Mall of America incident, he showed up at his sister's home and punched her. "She said he just was like a zombie," Becky Aranda said. "She looked into his eyes, it's like he didn't have any soul." (More Mall of America stories.)

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