A Minneapolis man who was fatally shot near a busy intersection in St. Paul while two young children were in his vehicle was not the intended target, according to charges filed Thursday.
Andre L. Mitchell, 26, was killed in a daytime shooting in November. His 2-month-old child was in the backseat, as was his 5-year-old sister. Mitchell’s little sister later told investigators that the car’s windows broke during the shooting and she covered the baby with her body while shots rang out.
The baby’s carseat was filled with broken window glass and there was a bullet hole in it, but the infant wasn’t harmed.
Officers were called to Aurora Avenue just off Dale Street at 1:35 p.m. on Nov. 22 on a report of a shooting outside an apartment building. Police found Mitchell near a Mazda’s front passenger seat with gunshot wounds to his upper torso. He died as St. Paul Fire Department medics were taking him to Regions Hospital.
A 26-year-old man who’d been in the Mazda with Mitchell said they were waiting to pick up the mother of Mitchell’s child, who was working as a personal care attendant, when a black sport-utility vehicle drove past. The SUV’s rear passenger door opened and the man heard multiple gunshots. There were at least 13 bullet holes in the driver’s side of the Mazda and Mitchell was shot seven times.
The man with Mitchell said neither he nor Mitchell were from the area, and he didn’t know of Mitchell having any enemies.
Earlier confrontation
Officers were originally called to the Aurora Avenue apartment building about an hour before the shooting. A 23-year-old woman reported “that at least five women associated with the father of her child were making threats outside her apartment door,” that one of the women pointed a gun at the door and others had mace and knives, the complaint said.
She said she had let a cousin of her child’s father stay at her apartment, but the cousin became disrespectful and she kicked the cousin out. As a result, she said she’d been threatened.
Neither Mitchell nor the man in the Mazda with him were the father of the woman’s child or his cousin.
Security camera footage showed a Mitsubishi Outlander, which appeared to have five people inside, stopped five feet from the Mazda. Four people fired handguns from the Mitsubishi toward the Mazda, before driving away. Police found the Mitsubishi is owned by a financing company and is associated with Steven Rawls Jr., 25, of Minneapolis, the complaint said.
Rawls is a brother of the 23-year-old woman who reported the initial problem. Phone location records showed Rawls’ phone was in the area of the homicide at the time of the shooting, the complaint said.
A group of people got into the Mitsubishi, driven by Rawls, “and shot up a car full of people not involved in the earlier incident,” killing Mitchell, the complaint said.
Arrested at hospital
Police arrested Rawls on Tuesday after he arrived at Hennepin County Medical Center with a gunshot wound to his hand. He told police he owned the Mitsubishi, but said he loaned it out. He said he did not go to St. Paul on Nov. 22.
When investigators asked Rawls if he recalled his sister having a problem on Nov. 22, he said he never left “Minneapolis that day as he was praying,” the complaint said. “When pressed and told that his statement wasn’t true, Steven Rawls asked for a lawyer and the interview was ended.”
Rawls is charged with aiding and abetting murder and attempted murder. He is due to make his first court appearance in the case Friday; an attorney for him wasn’t listed in the court file Thursday.
The investigation into Mitchell’s homicide is ongoing.
