Man accused in fatal St. Paul shooting was celebrating prison release anniversary, charges say
A St. Paul, Minnesota, man charged with murder in a shooting in the city's Frogtown neighborhood Saturday morning was celebrating the second anniversary of his release from prison before the incident, according to a court document filed Monday.
Police officers responded to the shooting in the area of Edmund Avenue and Kent Street around 4:20 a.m., the criminal complaint said. They learned that one gunshot victim was at the scene and another was self-transporting to the hospital.
According to the court document, the officers found a 27-year-old man unresponsive and with a large amount of blood on his face and head. He died in an ambulance on the way to a hospital.
Investigators found a "small group" of spent shell casings on a sidewalk at the intersection, and additional shell casings and blood in the doorway of a home on Kent Street, the complaint said. They also learned a 27-year-old woman who was shot in the leg had arrived at a hospital.
The woman told police that she was celebrating someone else's birthday at the home when a male, later identified as the 37-year-old man charged, walked up wearing a dirty green hooded sweatshirt with the hood on his head, according to the court document. She allegedly heard someone say, "Not here. Not here, bro."
The woman ran after she saw the man pull out a black handgun from the front pocket of his sweatshirt, the complaint said, and she heard about four gunshots before she felt "a pinch on her upper leg."
According to the court document, the man charged arrived at the hospital with a gunshot wound to his upper thigh. While speaking with investigators, he said he was celebrating the anniversary of his release from prison with his family. Online court records show he was convicted of second-degree murder in 2010 and released from the Minnesota Department of Corrections on July 18, 2024.
The man said he was outside in a crowd when gunfire erupted, that he never saw the person who shot him and did not "hear any specific threats or arguments before the shooting," according to the complaint. He added that he had changed his lifestyle after serving 14 years in prison and was "not involved in any violence or 'gun games.'"
The stepmother of the man killed told police at the hospital that she heard from other family members who saw the shooting that the St. Paul man was the individual who shot her stepson, per the court document.
Surveillance video from the area showed the St. Paul man pulling a handgun out of his sweatshirt pocket and shooting it five times at the man killed, according to the complaint. He allegedly denied being involved in the shooting while talking with investigators.
Court records show the man is charged with one count of second-degree murder in Saturday's shooting. If convicted, he faces up to 40 years in prison.
