Charges in weekend downtown Minneapolis bar close shooting
By Crime Watch MN, Aug. 23, 2023
An Inver Grove Heights man recently released from prison has been charged in a downtown Minneapolis shooting that took place at bar close early Saturday morning.
Deandre Lavonne Johnson, 26, has been charged with felony counts of second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon, second-degree riot while armed with a dangerous weapon, and being a felon in possession of a firearm after a female was shot in the back leaving her in critical condition.
Charges say a “dispute” preceded the shooting Crime Watch reported about 2:19 a.m. Saturday. Police in the area had called out over the air that they heard shots being fired in the area of North 1st Avenue and 4th Street North, according to dispatch audio. Another officer aired that a female appeared to be “down” and requested more responders for a possible shooting.
There were initial reports that others had been shot, including a male who police located and said he was shot in the leg. However, police later indicated that the person wasn’t shot.
Details from the complaint describe that another as yet unidentified shooter was also involved. An exchange of gunfire and the shooting incident were captured on surveillance. Johnson was arrested the following night after returning to the same location:
At the time of his arrest, Johnson was on “intensive supervised release” having just been released from prison in January of this year following a Jan. 2018 conviction related to a 2016 shooting that left a juvenile male paralyzed from the neck down. Details in that case describe a drug deal gone awry in which Johnson shot the youth in the neck severing his spinal cord.
Johnson pled guilty under a plea agreement to first-degree assault (charges of attempted murder and aggravated robbery were dismissed in the plea deal).
Johnson was sentenced to seven years in prison.
Magical #MNmath**: 7 years = 4.6 years, for paralyzing a minor for life.
With credit for time served, Johnson was released from prison in mid 2021, but was eventually reincarcerated on a parole violation until this past January.
Johnson’s prior conviction on the violent crime prohibits him from possessing firearms.
Johnson made his first court appearance on the new charges today (Wednesday) and was denied a public defender. He remains in custody on $250,000 bail. Records also indicate that Johnson is on a hold from the Department of Corrections since he’s still on parole/ISR. Court records were not updated at the time of this report listing Johnson’s next court appearance.
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**Minnesota only requires offenders to serve two-thirds of their sentence incarcerated and the remainder on supervised release. New legislation passed in the last session, the “Minnesota Rehabilitation and Reinvestment Act,” will potentially lessen incarceration to just half of the pronounced sentence for some offenders.
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