A St. Paul man charged with fatally shooting a teenager at a Highland Park house party last summer was found not guilty of the crime.
After several hours of deliberation Tuesday, a Ramsey County jury acquitted Brandon D’Angelo Alexander, 23, of both second-degree murder charges facing him in the case, according to his defense attorney, Richard Sarette.
Alexander was accused of fatally shooting 19-year-old Tyshawn Hill at a party in the 2400 block of Youngman Avenue on July 27 in a fit of anger set into motion when Alexander got kicked out of the party.
“He was very composed in the courtroom when they read the verdicts,” Sarette said of Alexander’s reaction. “Obviously, he is very happy.”
Sarette and his co-counsel, Andrea Brown, argued at trial that prosecutors had pegged Hill’s death on the wrong guy.
Angry that he was kicked out of the gathering, they said Alexander returned to the party later that night carrying a BB gun.
When he arrived, they said partygoers mobbed him, so he pulled out his air gun.
That’s when they say someone else pulled out a real gun and fired three shots.
“When he is going in there with his BB gun, someone else starts shooting at him and, unfortunately, Mr. Hill gets in the way,” Sarette said during his closing statement Tuesday morning.
“But you can’t compound this tragedy by convicting the wrong person,” he continued.
Further evidence of his client’s innocence was the gunshot wound he sustained to his hand during the altercation, Sarette said.
“It doesn’t make sense that (Alexander) could be both the shooter and the victim of a gunshot wound,” Sarette told the jury. He added that police had recovered only one real firearm at the scene.
Alexander was upset after being evicted from the party and returned with the firearm shortly thereafter to “teach someone a lesson,” Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Ryan Michael Flynn said during his closing arguments.
Hill was visiting the Twin Cities from Chicago when he attended the party.
Alexander, who lived nearby, also was there but was asked to leave after getting into several altercations during the gathering.
Shortly after he returned to the party, shots were fired, the complaint said.
Officers arrived to find Hill on the floor of the kitchen, covered in blood. He had a gunshot wound to the back and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Alexander was arrested after giving police inconsistent stories about how he ended up at North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale hours after the shooting with a gunshot wound to his hand.
Sarette argued that the witnesses who testified against Alexander were untrustworthy. He said Alexander had been dishonest with police because he felt guilty for returning to the party looking for a fight.
Alexander was expected to be released from custody sometime Tuesday evening, Sarette said.