St. Paul man convicted in fatal drive-by shooting

A St. Paul man was sentenced Monday to nearly 26 years in prison for fatally shooting a man in the head outside a North End home and then wounding another man who was on his way to church on the St. Paul Street with family four days later. East Side of the city.

Kavion Jayvon Barnett, 29, of St. Paul, admitted in January to killing James Jeffrey King Sr. had shot, who was sitting in his pickup truck in his driveway when he was shot at the temple on February 9, 2022, and died on March 1. Barnett also pleaded guilty to shooting a 45-year-old man who was riding on the Earl Street Bridge with his wife and two children on Feb. 13. That man was shot in the arm.

Ramsey County District Judge Sophia Y. Vuelo upheld the Jan. 29 plea deal, which called for 22 years and three months for King’s murder and nearly 3½ years for the drive-by shooting. The sentences run consecutively.

At the time of the shooting, Barnett was on parole supervision awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty in an August 2021 shootout in St. Paul. In that case, Barnett, another man who was also charged, and a woman were injured. In April 2022, he was sentenced to three years and three months for the shooting.

According to the murder complaint, officers were dispatched to the 200 block of Front Avenue just before 10 p.m. on a report of a shooting and found King in the driver’s seat of his Ford F-150 parked in his driveway. The driver’s window was partially shattered and King had a gunshot wound to his left temple.

A neighbor told police he heard a gunshot the previous night, but didn’t think anything of it because the sound of gunshots is not unusual in the neighborhood.

Officers found a .45-caliber shell casing near Front Avenue and Woodbridge Street. It later matched a shell casing found after the Earl Street Bridge shooting.

A man contacted homicide investigators and said he witnessed King’s shooting. He said a Honda Odyssey minivan stopped at Woodbridge Street and Front Avenue, where the driver pointed a gun out the window and shot once.

Further investigation revealed that Barnett was associated with a silver Honda Odyssey involved in the bridge shooting. About four hours after the shooting, surveillance footage showed Barnett abandoning the minivan he was driving. Delaquay Levius Williams got out of the passenger side of the minivan.

Williams, 29, of St. Paul, is charged with two murders in St. Paul 2022 – one on Feb. 1 and the other on March 4. The cases are pending in court.

Analysis of a shell casing found in the Earl Street Bridge shooting showed the gun was the same one Williams allegedly used in the March killing, according to the criminal complaint against Barnett.

‘There was no intention to kill’

Barnett was arrested on April 11, 2022 and spoke with investigators. When shown surveillance photos of both incidents, he admitted he was the person who drove the minivan over the Earl Street Bridge and into the area of ​​King’s shooting, the complaint said.

Barnett initially denied shooting anyone and then said it was “a manslaughter case because he did not intend to kill (King),” according to the complaint. “Barnett said he had had previous confrontations with JK over loud music. The most recent incident occurred a few nights before the shooting.”

Barnett said he saw King in his driveway and that King “started talking crazy” and shot him once from the minivan, the complaint said. Barnett said his only intention was to scare King.

When asked about the bridge shooting, Barnett said he shot the car once because he thought it was a rival gang member — and not a family on the way to church, the complaint said.

After admitting to investigators that he fired a .45-caliber handgun in both incidents, Barnett claimed he threw the gun into the river, the complaint said. But officers told him that was a lie, as the gun had been used in the March 4 killing after Barnett’s two shootings. He refused to tell investigators who he gave the gun to.