Court of Appeals Upholds Quadruple Shooting Suspect’s Conviction

(KNSI) — The Minnesota Court of Appeals has upheld the conviction of a suspect connected to a 2022 quadruple shooting in St. Cloud.

Jamarcus Jamond Morris was convicted of four counts of aiding and abetting attempted first-degree murder and sentenced to 72 years in prison. Morris appealed, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence used to identify him as the masked shooter.

According to court documents filed in Stearns County District Court, at 5:47 p.m. on July 6, 2022, Morris, Daquan Ledbetter, and Bryant Garth II got out of a car that had driven up in an alley between 5th Avenue South and 6th Avenue South near 11th Street South and began shooting toward a group of people on 11th Street. Four people were hit, including a 15-year-old boy shot in the neck and shoulder. A 21-year-old was shot in the head, another 21-year-old in the chest, and a 19-year-old in the elbow.

Witnesses told police there had been an assault at a gas station the day before the shooting. There were also messages sent between the suspects and the victims, but court papers did not say whether those messages contained any threats.

Court papers say two groups met for a planned fistfight, but three men opened fire instead. Security cameras captured the incident, showing a masked shooter in a white balaclava getting out of a white Nissan Sentra and firing at the opposing group alongside Ledbetter and Garth. Surveillance footage from days before the shooting showed Morris had a similar build to the masked shooter and had associated with the three others who were at the scene. The car was registered to the mother of Morris’s child, and police found a receipt with Morris’s name in the glove compartment. DNA testing on the car’s door handle indicated Morris was likely among three contributors to the sample.

During searches, police recovered Morris’s ID, a similar white balaclava mask with red lettering, and ammunition from locations connected to Morris. Cellphone data placed Morris’s phone traveling from his location to near the shooting site before the incident. Social media messages on his phone discussed trading a “Mac” weapon for a “Glock” hours before the shooting, and police found a photo of a MAC-10 or MAC-11 on his device.

Morris’s defense argued the evidence contained “fatal disconnects,” claiming the recovered mask wasn’t the same due to visible red lettering not seen in video footage, and suggesting someone called “John Wick” was the actual shooter.

The court rejected these arguments, noting the shooter’s hood could have obscured the lettering and that the alternative theory lacked evidentiary support. The court concluded that when viewed as a whole, the evidence pointed to only one reasonable inference: Morris was the masked shooter. The conviction was upheld.

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