Woman tried to shoot Minnesota trooper in head, after car went into median

MOORHEAD, Minn. — Court documents say a woman driving a car that spun out of control on Interstate 94 near Moorhead earlier this week held a gun to the head of a state trooper who stopped to help her.

According to the criminal complaint, the car 30-year-old Melody Gray and Domonique Crayton, 29, were driving had been stolen from Germantown, Wis.

After Trooper Mark Peterson learned the car was stolen, he attempted to handcuff Crayton on Monday. While doing so, Gray got out of the car, pulled out a 9mm handgun, held it to the trooper’s head and pulled the trigger. Reports are, however, the gun did not fire.

Peterson then put Crayton on the ground behind the vehicle and shot at Gray, hitting her in the right arm. She fled across the westbound lanes of I-94 into a field.

After cuffing Crayton, the trooper recovered the gun, which ended up under a snowplow that had stopped near the scene.

As Peterson was chasing Gray, Crayton tried to get up but an off-duty dispatcher got to the scene and ordered him back to the ground, preventing him from getting up until backup could come.

Meanwhile, Gray had collapsed in the field. Backup came and helped her out of the field and tended to her wound until an ambulance arrived. She remains hospitalized in Fargo, N.D., and charges are pending.

Both Gray and Crayton are wanted in Milwaukee for kidnapping and other felony charges. Crayton is in the Clay County Jail on a slew of charges.

Peterson was not injured and is on standard administrative lead. The shooting incident was captured on squad video but there is no body camera video.