Authorities have arrested two teenagers and an adult and charged them with murder in connection with a shooting at a St. Paul Metro Transit Green Line station.
The Ramsey County District Attorney’s Office on Thursday charged Lamar Thomas and Markel Jennings, both 17, and 21-year-old Markus Jennings with second-degree murder. Prosecutors allege the trio shot Kevon Ewing, 23, of Mounds View, multiple times as he exited a Metro Green Line train in St. Paul last month. Ewing died from his wounds.
The hearings for Markel and Markus Jennings are scheduled for Friday morning. Authorities have issued a warrant for Thomas’ arrest.
According to the charging documents:
St. Paul officers responded to a shooting on the train platform near Dale Street and University Avenue around 10:55 p.m. on May 17. They found Ewing lying on the platform with multiple gunshot wounds. Officers rendered aid to Ewing until medics transported him to Regions Hospital, where he died that night.
There is evidence that three guns were used to kill Ewing. Officers found six casings of .40 and 9 mm caliber on the platform and in the train. Tests showed that the 9mm casings had been fired from different guns.
Police interviewed Ewing’s cousin, who claimed to be at the scene. The cousin said he and Ewing were on the train with other cousins ​​when a group recognized Ewing. Someone in the group asked, “Who’s this?” and identified Ewing as a gang member from the opposing group. The man and his cousins ​​planned to run from the train at the next stop, but said a member of the other group said, “Kill them. Let’s shoot.”
One of the men allegedly pointed a gun at Ewing and fired. The cousin said a black-and-red tattoo covered the top of the man’s hand. He then heard someone flip a switch — a gun with an attached automatic sear that makes the weapon fire as if it were automatic. He escaped with his other cousins ​​and added that Ewing’s shooting may have been related to commemorative pins that gang members wear on their clothing.
Surveillance footage supported the cousin’s story, showing a man in a blue surgical mask shooting Ewing as the train doors opened at the Dale Street station. Ewing then ran past an open train door, where another man in a blue surgical mask, with a tattoo on his right hand, shot Ewing multiple times. A third man was seen in the video footage getting off the train and shooting Ewing once as he lay dying on the platform. The gunmen and another man with them fled the scene, driving away in a tan Buick.
An autopsy by the Ramsey County Medical Examiner found that Ewing died after being shot five times, with bullets piercing his back, chest, right arm and right leg.
Police identified the man with a hand tattoo as Lamar Thomas and identified Markel Jennings as the third shooter. DNA from a blue surgical mask recovered near the scene matched Markus Jennings, and Markus and Markel Jennings’ mother identified the two when police showed her photos of the shooting.
A search of the brown Buick turned up a Pittsbugh Pirates cap that matched the one Ewing’s shooter was wearing on May 17. Officers also found sweatpants similar to those worn by Ewing’s first shooter and clothing worn during a May 11 shooting, which earned Thomas and Markus Jennings an attempted murder charge. Markus was previously convicted of aggravated robbery with violence in the first degree.
