Charges: Gun ‘just went off,’ and suspect fled after 15-year-old girl was killed in Minneapolis home

A male suspected of fatally shooting a 15-year-old girl in a north Minneapolis home fled after the weapon “just went off” and remains at large, according to charging documents filed Tuesday against two teenage brothers.

Jamal Deon Otis, 17, and Jaamar Deondre Otis, 16, were each charged by juvenile petition in Hennepin County District Court with felony aiding an offender after the fact in connection with the shooting Saturday afternoon of Tyra Kiyae Terry in a two-story house in the 3400 block of N. Logan Avenue.

Terry was visiting the home of the Otis brothers, her cousins, at the time of the shooting, according to the petitions.

“Based on the evidence gathered at the scene, police determined a firearm was being handled negligently in a way that created an unreasonable risk and caused the death of [Terry],” the petitions read.

The County Attorney’s Office indicated in the petitions that it intends to ask that that the teens be prosecuted in adult court, where any conviction would likely lead to stiffer sentences. Court records do not list attorneys for either brother.

The brothers appeared in court Tuesday and were approved to be represented by different public defenders. Judge Bruce Manning ordered them to be detained on electronic home monitoring. Jamaal Otis is due back in court Wednesday, while Jaamar Otis has a hearing scheduled for Sept. 10.

Questioned soon after the shooting by police about the person who shot Terry, both brothers said they didn’t know the suspect was in the home at the time. Police have announced no further arrests as of Tuesday afternoon.

In a statement issued after the petitions were filed, County Attorney Mary Moriarty said, “I am sure that [the suspect] is scared, but the best thing he can do is to turn himself in. We don’t want anyone else to get hurt, including him.”

According to the petitions:

A call to 911 sent officers to the home, where they found Terry on the floor in a bedroom suffering from a gunshot to the chest. Standing by her were the Otis brothers. Next to her feet was an extended magazine with 9-millimeter ammunition, the same caliber as the bullet removed from her chest.

Terry was taken by emergency medical responders to North Memorial Health Hospital and pronounced dead there.

The brothers’ mother told police she heard a gunshot from upstairs followed by “the boys” yelling “It was an accident! It was an accident!” the petitions read.

The woman said she went upstairs and the suspected shooter, a friend of one of her sons, walked past her and down the stairs with eyes “bugged out” and left the home,” the charging documents continued.

Another person in the home told officers she saw the suspect in the bedroom with the brothers, and “ ’everyone kept saying it was an accident, [and] the gun just went off,’ ” the petitions read. She added that the suspect “was trying to help” in some manner not specified in the petitions, but he left before police arrived.

Jamaal Otis, the older of the brothers, told police he was playing video games in his room and did not hear any gunfire. When asked about the suspect, someone he knows from school, Jamaal Otis said “he didn’t know anything about [the] suspect being there at the time of the shooting.”

Jaamar Otis explained to police that he was sleeping when he heard people screaming. The younger brother also said he didn’t see the suspect and did not know whom the suspect was visiting.

According to a related document, a search of the home later Saturday afternoon turned up a gun with a magazine, four other magazines, live ammunition, a gun case, two gun boxes, a rifle butt and a duffle bag with “misc. firearm items.”

The petitions noted that the gun seized in the search was stolen in Brooklyn Center and was of a different caliber than the one used to shoot Terry.

A bag of drugs, a digital scale and 10 cellphones also were seized, the related filing added.