According to a Hennepin County Courthouse (MN) clerk, one of two accused killers--Billie Ray Deshawn Johnson, 18--pled guilty on February 21, 2007, to murdering Michael Zebuhr in the second degree.
The defendant thereby avoided his trial scheduled to begin February
27 on first degree murder charges which carry life imprisonment if
found guilty. A sentencing hearing for Johnson is scheduled for
March 15, 2007. It is not clear if the prosecution has promised or
guaranteed any specific prison term for Johnson. Johnson's attorney
is a tax-paid public defender (you get what you pay for?). By
avoiding a trial, of course, there is no public exposure of how much
evidence the prosecution possesses to prove its case against the
defendant in a jury trial.
A trial of the second accused suspect in Michael's murder--Donte
Jacobs, 18--(also defended by a public defender) apparently is still
scheduled for trial April 16 in the Hennepin County Courthouse. Plea
to a lesser charge forthcoming?
My wife, 1 1/2 year old son, and I were held up at gunpoint by these two about 3 hours prior to Michael's tragic shooting. When taking that into consideration, I think it lends less credence to the idea that the shooters were in on a conspiracy (doesn't say anything about the rest of the possibilities, though), and more to the idea that they were some misguided (to put it politely) kids out getting into too much trouble.
ReplyDeleteI probably should have read the rest of the blog prior to writing the first post. Here are some additional comments:
ReplyDeleteWe were the people held up at the ATM.
The 3/22/06 KARE-11 report (http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=121354) incorrectly states that the two people were of Somali. This is incorrect. They were African American, but not of Somali descent.
The 4/7/06 entry regarding the ATM robbery again shows the confusion. THEY WERE NOT SOMALI.
The 5th Precinct covers South Minneapolis, which is a pretty diverse chunk of land. Uptown is quite safe, but as you get closer to I-35, it becomes less so. In addition, the city wants to help maintain Uptown as a safe business district, to the statement that several homicide detectives/officers were investigating within 30 minutes is credible.
Having been face to face with these people, my impression is that they were quite inexperienced and nervous and that this lack of experience led to this tragedy.
Cops get things like specific dates of birth wrong because in the fiend they usually write stuff down by hand and on the fly.
Al, prove that you are not a phony.
ReplyDeleteYour experience with the perps and subsequent expert observations lead me to believe that you are not the one who was held up.
All to convenient. Is that what y'all do down at the MCCL (43rd & Nicollet Av S)?
Post to the computer all day trying to make it seem like there are more of you then there are?
I believe Al. When you realize that Minneapolis is not safe even in areas that should be safe and the Mayor and the media cover it up on a daily. Considering that young black thugs roam the streets there looking for mostly white targets to victimize (Read Colin Flaherty's book White Girl Bleed A Lot) then you can believe that anyone standing near an ATM would have been robbed. If you've ever watched some of the youtube videos of that area you can see that black mobs target white people dining in what is suppose to be upscale and safe restaurants. One such video shows a group of white people eating at a restaurant and a black mob enters and take the glass of water the white woman is drinking and throws the water in the face of the woman. The man tries to defend her and a black man reaches over and steals a phone that is laying on the table. Then at some point after assaulting this couple they run out of the restaurant. This isn't uncommon there.
ReplyDeleteDoes this rule out conspiracy? No. But it does support the idea that these guys were a little more than "misguided." Also, I'm not sure if the evidence doesn't support Deshawn as the one who pulled the trigger, prosecutors don't normally care about truth as much as they care about convictions under their belts. I can really see it as the other guy shot him. After all these two aren't being tried together they are being tried separately and if you are trying to get one or the other to confess to who shot Michael you might go to the one and say "hey if you just admit you shot him, we'll give you a lesser sentence and this will all be over." So, he confesses to 20 years as he might be out sooner than 20 and then goes to court and makes a fake apology. All the while gaining points with him homie for not snitching. His homie can now go to try free and clear of a 1 degree murder charge and they both get out in 20-25 years. The law has loop holes.
For all intensive purposes seems like a cut and dry case of a couple of thugs.
him homie= his homie
ReplyDeletego to try= go to trial
It's early.