A marijuana sale outside a Bloomington apartment complex turned into a gunfight between two groups that left the seller shot in the leg and sent more than 40 callers to 911, prosecutors say.
Treshawn Fitzgerald Robinson, 21, of Brooklyn Park, and Ramaius Lovell Sinoe-Walker, 20, of Lakeville, are each charged with second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon and aiding and abetting second-degree riot while armed with a dangerous weapon. Robinson is also charged with fleeing a peace officer in a motor vehicle. Sinoe-Walker is also charged with possessing a firearm after a conviction for a crime of violence.
According to the complaints, Bloomington police responded at about 1:49 p.m. on September 9 to the area of the Carbon 31 Apartments at 30th Avenue South and Lindau Lane after more than 40 911 calls reported a shooting. Callers said a group of males had been shooting at each other and that two of the shooters had fled toward the Mall of America in a red Nissan SUV with no rear license plate.
Officers found the Nissan on Lindau Lane near the mall and activated their lights and sirens, but the driver fled east on American Boulevard and tried to U-turn back west. Police used a precision intervention technique to disable the SUV. The driver, identified as Robinson, and the front-seat passenger, identified as Sinoe-Walker, ran. Officers saw Sinoe-Walker toss a handgun during the chase. Both were arrested. Police recovered the discarded gun and later found a second firearm under the driver’s seat during a search of the Nissan.
At the apartment complex, officers found a man walking from the courtyard toward 30th Avenue with a gunshot wound through his leg, helped by another man. Several spent cartridge casings lay nearby. The wounded man told officers he did not know who shot him and was taken to a hospital. The man helping him was uncooperative and changed his story several times, the complaints say.
Officers followed a blood trail to an apartment whose patio door opens onto the courtyard. A search of the apartment, where the two men had been staying, turned up a blood trail leading to the bathroom, multiple pounds of suspected marijuana, about $10,000 in cash, drug packaging, a digital scale and a handgun in a bedroom.
Witnesses told police they heard 15 to 20 shots and saw three males hiding behind parked cars on the east side of 30th Avenue while two males stood by the red Nissan in a parking lot across the street, with both groups firing at each other. One of the males on the east side was hit and helped into the apartment, and at one point one of them came back out the patio door and fired more shots across the street. In the parking lot, officers found a large amount of cash, a blood-like substance, a car with bullet damage, more casings and a black sedan left running and unoccupied.
In a post-Miranda statement, the wounded man said he had gone to the parking lot to sell marijuana to Sinoe-Walker, a repeat customer, and told him the rest of the order was inside the apartment. He said Sinoe-Walker then pulled a handgun, held it at his side, told him to hand over the marijuana he had and shot him in the leg. The man in the passenger seat of the Nissan then got out and started shooting, he said. He dragged himself to the apartment, where the other man pulled him inside and then back out to the sidewalk, where police found them.
The man who was shot, Ochonge Nygare Gilo, 24, of Austin, Minnesota, was booked on probable cause of aggravated robbery and riot and remains in custody. The man who helped him, Deavion Kavon Thompson, 21, of Austin, Minnesota, was booked on probable cause of first-degree drug possession and possessing a firearm as a felon; he has since been released without being charged.
About This Charge
Minnesota classifies assault by degree under § 609.221 (first), § 609.222 (second), § 609.223 (third), § 609.2231 (fourth) and § 609.224 (fifth). First-degree assault, alleging great bodily harm, carries up to 20 years in prison. The lower degrees range from misdemeanor up to 10-year felony exposure depending on weapon use and harm.
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Jurisdictional Context
Hennepin County is Minnesota’s most populous jurisdiction. The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office handles felony prosecutions across Minneapolis and 45 surrounding cities; the Fourth Judicial District presides over felony arraignments and trials at the Hennepin County Government Center in downtown Minneapolis.
