DULUTH – A 17-year-old boy has been charged with fatally shooting a man in the head while opening fire toward a crowd in downtown Duluth.
Patrick W. Battees Jr., of Proctor, who turns 18 in about three weeks, was charged by juvenile petition in St. Louis County District Court with intentional second-degree murder in connection with the shooting of Juamada K. Anderson, 22, of Duluth, early Saturday evening in the 100 block of E. 3rd Street.
Prosecutors have filed with the court to have the case tried in adult court. Battees remains in custody ahead of a hearing on June 3. Court records do not yet list an attorney for him.
This was Duluth's first homicide of the year.
"This young man with his entire life in front of him was gunned down in the streets of Duluth," said Duluth Police Chief Mike Tusken at a Tuesday afternoon news conference. "That shocks all of our consciences when we see people die violently in our street, and it's something that certainly concerns us."
According to the charging document and a police report filed in court:
Officers responding to the shooting around 7 p.m. found Anderson on the ground, shot in the head. Two females held T-shirts to his head, while one female held one of his hands and a male held the other.
The officers located Battees minutes later in a nearby alley and a .45-caliber handgun tucked in an old couch in a different alley close by.