Charges: 7 kids left alone when girl waving gun shot 11-year-old boy in the face

Seven children no older than 13 were left alone in a St. Paul apartment, where a girl got ahold of a gun, then shot and critically wounded an 11-year-old boy, according to charges filed Monday.

Apartment resident Martinez C. Lloyd, 34, was charged in Ramsey County District Court with two counts, possessing a gun despite being a felon and failing to store a gun out of the reach of a child, in connection with the wounding Friday of Damarjae Lott in an apartment in the 800 block of Pierce Butler Route.

Lloyd remains jailed in lieu of $200,000 bail ahead of a court appearance Tuesday. Court records do not list an attorney for him.

County Attorney’s Office spokesman Dennis Gerhardstein said police also sent to prosecutors a case for them to review concerning a youth, presumably the 13-year-old girl who fired the weapon. However, data practice laws prohibit the office from providing any further details about that case, Gerhardstein said.

The criminal complaint said Damarjae was hospitalized in critical condition as of midday Monday.

“This incident is tragic and infuriating,” Police Chief Axel Henry said in a statement. “All of us have a responsibility to do everything we can to prevent things like this from happening, everything.”

“If you’re not supposed to have guns, don’t have guns. If you have guns, you have a duty and a responsibility to keep them safe and away from those who shouldn’t have them. In this case, no one should have had a gun, child or adult.”

Charges being filed in this case, the chief added, “don’t undo the damage. This should never have happened, period. We must take ownership of our actions and inactions if we are to have any chance to prevent the next tragedy.”

According to the charges:

Officers arrived at the apartment shortly before 9 p.m. and found Damarjae on the floor at the top of the stairs with a gunshot wound to face. Medics took him to a hospital for surgery.

Several children in the apartment said the girl was playing with a gun, and she said, “I won’t shoot him.” She then shot Damarjae and fled to her home on Charles Avenue.

“I accidentally shot somebody,” the complaint quoted her as telling the officers as they took her into custody that night. “I didn’t know the gun was loaded.”

Lloyd is the father of two of the children who live somewhere else and were visiting him. His two children and five others with them, ranging in age from 10 to 13, arrived about 8:20 p.m. Lloyd left for the store about 8:50 p.m. and came back minutes after the shooting.

While Lloyd was gone, his son and a niece went into Lloyd’s bedroom. They each retrieved a handgun and started waving them around. The two told police they have played with the guns “a dozen times” in the past year when Lloyd is not around, and “the firearms are generally unloaded.”

Lloyd acknowledged having seen children with the guns before and told them to put them back.

The 13-year-old said she last played with one of the guns the previous weekend, and she assumed the guns were unloaded as usual. As she was waving and playing with the gun, a shot was fired that hit Damarjae. Other children carried the boy to the kitchen, gave him water and then intended to walk him outside, but he collapsed and police arrived.

After his arrest, Lloyd said he keeps the guns high up in a cabinet and usually stored them unloaded. He acknowledged that his children and the 13-year-old girl have seen him handle the guns previously.

Law enforcement seized both guns from the apartment. One was under a couch cushion in the living room.

Lloyd’s felony drug conviction in 2010 made him ineligible to possess a gun.