An argument over a gun between two 17-year-olds in a stolen vehicle ended in St. Paul with one being killed and the other charged on Monday with murder.
Elijah Watson, of St. Paul, died last Monday afternoon in the North End.
The Ramsey County attorney’s office charged Javeon Norbor-Mayon Kohene, of South St. Paul, with second-degree intentional murder, not premeditated, and first-degree aggravated robbery for an armed carjacking of a woman that followed.
Watson’s homicide had ripple effects on people in the area.
After Watson was shot in the 500 block of Jessamine Avenue, he exited the vehicle and banged on the door of a residence before collapsing.
A woman who called 911 — who police said was visibly shaken, crying and screaming — told them her grandchildren were at her home for distance learning when she heard the banging on her door. She looked outside and saw a male covered in blood.
The children also were crying and one reported he “had already looked outside,” according to the juvenile petition filed in Ramsey County District Court against Kohene.
Watson’s grandmother, Bernice Parks, said Elijah was “a happy, go-lucky kid. Always smiled. Always looking for acceptance. He wanted to be everybody’s friend.”
One of Parks’ sons, Darius Maxwell, was also killed in St. Paul when he was 17-years-old. In 2010, Maxwell was stabbed by his girlfriend’s former boyfriend, whom she had a protective order against, but who broke into the residence.
“It’s just so sad because these young children are doing the things that they’re doing and they don’t understand the consequences of it,” Parks said. “So in the same token, when my son got killed, I said, ‘You know, there’s two lives lost now, because now one is going to be spending his life in prison.’”
FROM ONE STOLEN VEHICLE TO ANOTHER
Police found a photo on Watson’s cell phone, which was taken hour before he was shot. It showed Watson in a stolen BMW sport-utility vehicle with three other people, identified as Kohene, a 15- and a 16-year-old. Kohene later told police the BMW was running out of gas, so they traded it for a stolen Pontiac G6.
Surveillance video showed the Pontiac slowed down on Jessamine Avenue at 1:50 p.m. Monday, the driver and rear doors opened, and Watson stumbled out before the vehicle sped away.
Soon after, police received a 911 call about a male wiping down a vehicle on Sherburne Avenue and officers determined it was the Pontiac G6. Someone in another vehicle, a stolen Acura, picked up the male.
Then, last Tuesday afternoon, a 34-year-old woman reported she was carjacked after leaving work on Colorado Street off Robert Street on St. Paul’s West Side.
A male asked the woman for help jumpstarting a vehicle and pointed to the Acura. She lifted the hood of her vehicle to help and a male put a gun to her back and told her, “Don’t move,” the petition said. He stole her purse and her GMC Acadia.
Police found the Acadia parked at Kohene’s home later in the day and, when executing a search warrant, discovered a gun in the teen’s bedroom, according to the petition. The gun was confirmed to be the weapon used in Watson’s shooting, the petition said.
Kohene told police he not stolen the Acadia. He said he’d been in five stolen vehicles between Monday and Wednesday, but hadn’t stolen them, according to the petition. He also had a phone that was stolen during an auto theft in Minneapolis last Monday, though he said he didn’t steal it.
ARGUMENT OR ACCIDENTAL SHOOTING?
Police found the 16-year-old, who’d been in the vehicle during the shooting, in a stolen Jeep on Tuesday and arrested him.
He said Watson had been driving and handed a gun to Kohene, who responded, “This is my gun” and wouldn’t return the weapon to Watson, according to the petition.
Watson reached to grab the gun and Kohene “let off a shot and hit the victim in the face,” the petition said. He said Watson panicked and exited the vehicle.
The teen said he didn’t think Kohene intentionally tried to kill Watson, who hadn’t been touching the gun, but had pulled the trigger.
When police arrested Kohene late Wednesday, he said he hadn’t been arguing with Watson. Kohene said he’d been playing with the gun in his lap when it went off and Watson was shot.
“The investigators confronted Kohene and told him the physical evidence contradicted this statement because of the trajectory of the bullet,” the petition said. “… Kohene stated if the victim wanted the gun back, he would have just given it to him.”
Kohene told police he went to a vigil for Watson, but didn’t tell anyone there he had shot him.
“The investigators accused Kohene of not being remorseful since he posted a picture of himself on Facebook after the murder with the gun they had been fighting over,” the petition said. “Kohene again stated they were not arguing over the gun.”
But the 15-year-old who’d been in the vehicle told Watson’s family that he advised Watson not to tell Kohene had a gun because he worried Kohene would try to take it, based on him taking things from friends in the past, according to the petition.
He said Kohene laughed about shooting Watson “and showed no remorse,” the petition said.
The Ramsey County attorney’s office will seek to certify Kohene to stand trial as an adult. An attorney for Kohene wasn’t listed in the court record.