Armed Robbery Suspect Faces Long List of Charges

A man arrested in Savage on Monday following a high-speed police chase that started at Canterbury Park in Shakopee said he robbed a shoe store and fled police because he had a gambling problem and “did not want to lose everything,” according to a criminal complaint.

Peter Christopher Nunn, 42, of Fridley, told police he had gambled away money intended to pay rent, which led him to decide to rob a store. He allegedly also told police that he chose Famous Footwear as his target after driving by and seeing no cars in the parking lot.

Nunn is charged with aggravated robbery, assault, illegal possession of a firearm, fleeing police in a motor vehicle, making terroristic threats and theft. His bond has been set at $800,000

At 11:20 a.m. Monday, police responded to a call from an employee at Famous Footwear, who said the store had just been robbed. The employee described the robber as a “dark-skinned male, early 40s, thinner, wearing a gray sweatshirt, blue jeans, blue knit hat, and black shoes with white soles.”

She said a man entered the store and asked to look at slippers. The defendant left the store and walked to a vehicle, a white Chevy Blazer with a teal design on the side.

The robber returned to the store, walked up to the counter and pulled a black handgun from his waistband. The thief made off with an estimated $700 from the store's safe and two cash registers, as well as the employee's cell phone and purse. As he left he told the employee to lay on the floor in the store's bathroom and not come out.

Less than an hour later, Shakopee Police Officer Scott Weiers spotted Nunn in the parking lot at Canterbury Park. Nunn fled, leading police on a chase that reached speeds in excess of 90 miles per hour and made a number of twists and turns before finally coming to an end in the Target parking lot in Savage.

During a standoff in that parking lot, Nunn at one point pointed to his head with his right hand and told officers, “shoot me, shoot me in the head.” Nunn eventually surrendered to police, and is currently being held in the Scott County Jail.

During a search of Nunn's vehicle, police found a black Corssman T10 BB gun, a plastic bag from Famous Footwear and the Famous Footwear employee's purse and documents bearing her name. Nunn allegedly told police he tossed her cell phone out the window as he fled the scene of the robbery.

This is not Nunn's first run-in with the law. Most recently he was convicted of first degree aggravated robbery in Washington County in July 2002. He also has three prior aggravated robbery convictions in Hennepin County and another for attempted aggravated robbery. He was also convicted in Dakota County of aggravated robbery (in 1995 and again in 2001) and of assault.

Nunn is also a suspect in another shoe store robbery, last Saturday in Coon Rapids.