1st-degree murder charges dropped against three men in 2020 Minneapolis fatal shooting

Hennepin County prosecutors on Tuesday dismissed first-degree murder charges for three men charged in a fatal shooting in north Minneapolis last year, after a key state witness recanted his earlier testimony.

The men, Donell Deon Flowers, Edward Lee, and Tylan Deaontae Bland, were charged in the killing of 26-year-old Daniel Mack. A grand jury later indicted the men on first-degree murder.

But on Tuesday prosecutors released a brief saying they had dismissed the charges against Bland "because it has been unable to procure the necessary witnesses to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt."

Bland's attorney confirmed that charges were also dropped against the other two men, Flowers and Lee.

"They did not have a witness who would say they saw the shooting and could pick out who the shooters were," said the attorney, John Lucas, declining to say more.

Requests for comment made to the Hennepin County Attorney's Office and the Minneapolis Police Department weren't immediately returned on Tuesday.

According to the previously filed charges, police were summoned to North Memorial Health Hospital on the night of June 4, 2020, after hospital staff found Mack in the passenger seat of an abandoned Jeep, with a gunshot to back of the head.

A police investigation determined that the Jeep's driver and Mack were Low End gang members who had been driving through the intersection of N. 34th and Dupont avenues, the territory of the rival Tre Tre Crips.

Witnesses recounted seeing the Jeep circle the block several times, before a verbal argument broke between the Jeep's passengers and the men outside an SUV, according to police. Witnesses then heard a "rain" of gunshots, ducked down and saw all four men outside the SUV firing at the Jeep as it drove away. Police recovered more than 50 spent shell casings, of multiple calibers, from the scene.

With the assistance of the FBI, investigators obtained cellphone records for at least one of the suspects to determine whether he had been in the vicinity at the time of the shooting, according to court filings. A paid confidential informant also provided information about the incident.

But the prosecution case fell apart when a key witness changed his testimony. The man had previously told homicide detectives that he had been with the three men before the shooting and had seen them with guns, although he hadn't seen the attack itself, according to a defense filing. But, when re-interviewed earlier this month, he said that he hadn't even been home when the shooting was said to have occurred, the filing said.

The filing said that the man's story had changed several times over the interceding months; he also told authorities that he made his original statement under coercion by a police investigator, who had threatened to charge him with an unrelated drug case unless he agreed to testify, according to the filing.

Libor Jany • 612-673-4064 Twitter: @StribJany