A man walking with his girlfriend in downtown Minneapolis' theater district Saturday night was pistol-whipped and fatally shot after a volatile chance encounter with a stranger in a passing vehicle, according to a murder charge filed Tuesday.
Varnell D. Allen, 23, was charged in Hennepin County District Court with second-degree murder in the shooting of 21-year-old Enzo Herrera-Garcia, of Apple Valley, at the intersection of S. 8th Street and Hennepin Avenue.
Police said that Herrera-Garcia and Allen were unacquainted before they clashed and gunfire erupted in an area of downtown that routinely draws thousands on a weekend night.
"When we have situations like 8th and Hennepin, when an innocent person is shot and killed on our city streets, that absolutely is unacceptable," said Police Chief Medaria Arradondo. "We will certainly work with investigators, with the County Attorney's Office to make sure that person is held responsible."
Family and friends remembered Herrera-Garcia on social media as a friendly young man with a big laugh, who loved cars and was fiercely protective of his sisters. The Eastview High School graduate could quote nearly every line of the sitcom "The Office" and worked at NAPA Auto Parts, his sister wrote on Facebook.
"He wanted two cars, one automatic and one manual," said Heyzel Herrera. "A simple guy. He wanted to work hard and get my parents out of the trailer park where they raised us and get them a house."
In an earlier post, Herrera chastised those who assumed that Herrera-Garcia did something to deserve being shot.
"My brother was not a gang member, he didn't own a gun," she wrote, adding that he was a talented boxer. "He knew how to defend himself but never against a gun.
