Duluth drive-by shooter tied to death of teen sentenced to 30 years

DULUTH – A Duluth man who along with his passenger fired gunshots from a moving car on a summer afternoon in the Lincoln Park neighborhood, killing one and injuring another, was sentenced to more than 30 years in prison.

Sanussi Tamsir Bangoura, 22, was found guilty in June of three charges tied to the fatal shooting of Paris Kaden Allen, 19, and the life-altering gunshot wound suffered by Caleb Reinolt-Nemec, who continued afterward to feel jolts and twitches where a bullet entered near his hip. Bangoura’s co-defendant Brandon Capone Williams-Gillard, who faced similar charges, was sentenced this past April to 40 years in prison.

Bangoura has not yet been moved from the St. Louis County Jail; Williams-Gillard is at the correctional facility in St. Cloud.

Absent from Bangoura’s sentencing last week in St. Louis County Court: Allen’s father, Brian Allen, who attended both trials and provided emotional testimony and victim impact statements about how he raised Paris as a single father. His son, who had grown up in Duluth, had returned for a visit when he died.

He took his own life in the days following Bangoura’s trial.

Brian Allen told the court in April that his life had stopped, his thoughts had frozen since his son died. His memories would never refresh, he said. Judge Eric Hylden, who lost a son to overdose, offered hope at the time.

“The one thing I have to say to you is that it’s going to get better,” Hylden said.

Brian Allen died June 25 of a broken heart, according to his obituary.

The Aug. 2, 2023, shooting was born of a beef between two rival groups who planned to meet in the 2500 block of W. 2nd Street to box. But Bangoura and Williams-Gillard never got out of the car. They started shooting when the other men approached, one taking a swing through the window at Bangoura, then drove away shooting. Allen died on the sidewalk; Reinolt-Nemec went to a local hospital.

Ogima Joseph Currie, who was friends with the victims, was sentenced to five years in prison after he responded not long after the drive-by shooting by firing shots toward Bangoura and Williams-Gillard’s apartment. Some of the bullets hit a residence where a 9-year-old had been watching from the window, according to the criminal complaint. Currie pleaded guilty in May. He is at the prison in St. Cloud.