Derek Leake, 56, Charged In Fatal Stabbing On Metro Transit Bus

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- A 56-year-old Minneapolis man has been charged with two felony counts in the fatal stabbing of another man on a Metro Transit bus last month.

Charges were filed in Hennepin County against Derek Leake in the April 24 incident, which happened aboard a Metro Transit Route 21 bus at about 2:10 a.m. The stabbing happened near Lagoon and Emerson avenues.

Investigators say a "verbal altercation" preceded the stabbing, and the attacker fled on foot. Surveillance video from the bus showed Leake taking out a large knife and cleaning his fingernails with it before putting it away. The victim was then seen boarding the bus.

The victim was seen getting into an argument with a man who boarded the bus with Leake. Leake was then observed to take the knife out again and approach the victim, who upon seeing the weapon pushes Leake away.

Leake is then seen stabbing the victim in the neck before he and his companion ask to be let off the bus.

The bus driver, who initially thought the victim had been punched, realized that he had instead been stabbed and called 911. Responders arrived within minutes, but the victim had already died from the "significant bleeding."

The medical examiner's office identified the victim as 53-year-old Robert Leon Commodore, from Minneapolis. His official cause of death was listed as a "stab wound to the left side of the neck that severed major arteries and veins."

The complaint against Leake claims that he had stopped his weekly check-ins with police, which were required by his predatory offender registration. He has "multiple pending cases with warrants for violation of release conditions and failure to appear for court hearings."