Citing self-defense, Ramsey County prosecutors decline charges in fatal St. Paul stabbing

The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office will not level charges against a St. Paul man who stabbed another to death at a Lowertown gas station, reasoning that evidence shows his self-defense claims were plausible.

Prosecutors declined to charge the 60-year-old man, who is suspected of stabbing 35-year-old Derameo Johnson to death on Oct. 11, in a letter sent to the St. Paul Police Department on Wednesday. According to prosecutors, Johnson was erratic in the moments leading to the incident, attacking and trapping the man who had few places to turn. The Minnesota Star Tribune is not naming the man because he has not been charged.

“A jury would not convict on these facts in light of Johnson’s assaultive behavior. We cannot prove that [the suspect] was NOT acting in self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt on these facts,” the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office’s letter read. “[He] had no avenue of escape available to him since Johnson kept coming back into the store and remained outside in the parking lot when not in the store.”

The stabbing suspect told police that he biked to the Amoco Gas Station on Oct. 11 for a drink when he saw Johnson acting strangely. Surveillance footage captured Johnson wandering into traffic an hour beforehand, and a store clerk kicked Johnson out earlier that day for “acting erratically and disrupting business.” That clerk asked a co-worker for pepper spray when Johnson “got in his face,” but the co-worker said “pepper spray wouldn’t work on Johnson as they had used it on [him] before.”

The suspect offered to buy Johnson water, but Johnson became hostile and screamed at the man before leaving the store. Johnson returned as the man left the bathroom, punching him in the head and walking away.

The suspect pulled out a pocketknife after that, but Johnson returned. He threw the suspect’s bicycle at him and punched the man in the head again. The man then stabbed Johnson twice.

Both struggled for the knife before Johnson left the store wounded. The man asked the store clerk to call the police, and he removed his shirt for someone to use on Johnson’s wound.

“[He] said he didn’t want Johnson to die, but he didn’t want Johnson to beat the [expletive] out of him either,” the letter read.

Johnson’s death marked the 22nd homicide in the capital city this year, according to a Star Tribune database. There were 27 last year.

His death came a little more than two weeks after a random attack that killed 66-year-old Carrie Kwok in Lowertown. Court records show Seantrell Murdock, the 29-year-old suspect in Kwok’s death who was shot dead by police arresting him the next day, had a history of mental health issues and was barred from owning firearms.