Las Vegas man who fired first shot during deadly mass shooting in St. Paul sentenced to 29 years

A Ramsey County judge on Friday sentenced a Las Vegas man to 29 years in prison for his role in the 2021 mass shooting at a downtown St. Paul bar that left one woman dead and injured 14 others.

More than a dozen family and friends clad in orange shirts honoring the slain Marquisha "Kiki" Wiley celebrated the sentence imposed on Devondre Trevon Phillips. Phillips, 31, fired the first shots that touched off a brief but chaotic gun battle inside the crowded Seventh Street Truck Park bar just after midnight on Oct. 10, 2021.

"We can only dream of the missing pieces of what our Kiki's life would've been," her mother, Beth Wiley, told the courtroom before Judge Carolina Lamas handed down the sentence. Wiley and others wore shirts depicting the 27-year-old veterinary technician holding a sign that read, "No more silence, end gun violence."

Phillips was convicted by a jury in February of eight counts of attempted second-degree murder. On Friday, Lamas ordered several of those counts to be served consecutively over the objections of Phillips' attorney, John Lesch.

Phillips, a St. Paul native, had just returned from Las Vegas the night of the shooting after previously leaving Minnesota amid a long-running dispute with Terry Lorenzo Brown, who dated Phillips' cousin.

Phillips purchased a pistol outside the bar and later fired the first two shots into Jeffrey Hoffman — an associate of Brown's — while about 100 young men and women danced to mainstream hip-hop played by DJ Peter Parker.

Phillips and Brown exchanged gunfire, striking each other and a dozen bystanders, as Phillips left the bar. Phillips was shot five times, suffering a broken femur and a severed artery in his leg. Brown fired the shot that killed Wiley and was convicted by a jury this month of murder and other charges. He still is awaiting sentencing.

Lesch argued that Phillips acted in self defense, but Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Treye Kettwick contended Phillips positioned himself as an aggressor who intended to kill his enemies that night.

"We hope that today brings some measure of justice to all of those who still suffer the impact of that horrifying night," Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said in a statement after Friday's sentencing.

In all, 18 bullet casings where found at the scene. Other people were shot in an ankle, hand or leg. One victim, Nicholas Guerrero, was struck in the wrist, destroying an artery and scattering lead fragments that remain in his wrist and lip.

Guerrero's parents appeared in his place for Friday's sentencing.

"Mr. Phillips had no right to so callously cause so much anguish to Ms. Wiley's family and friends, to our family or to any of the other families," said Todd Guerrero, Nicholas Guerrero's father, in a statement to the court. "His selfish, stupid act has affected many people in many tragic ways — all of them who have no connection whatsoever to Mr. Phillips or Mr. Brown."

Kettwick read another statement from Charisma Kyles, a shooting victim who had rekindled a close friendship with Wiley just before they went to the bar that night. A bullet fired by Phillips detached Kyles' forearm from her elbow, setting off a long recovery process that caused her to postpone two semesters of school and resulted in lasting emotional and physical trauma.

"I must relearn how to live again," Kyles wrote.

Phillips, wearing a gray suit and tie, apologized to his victims and their families in brief remarks before his sentencing.

"Even though I will spend the rest of my life trying to make up for this situation, I am truly sorry for what occurred and I am here to stand responsible for my actions," Phillips said.

Lesch asked Lamas to impose a single term of 16 years to apply to all counts concurrently, arguing that Phillips had no adult criminal history and that his actions were not as severe as others previously convicted of multiple attempted murder charges.

Phillips has two prior convictions as a juvenile for aggravated robbery with a gun. Kettwick added that Phillips still has charges pending in domestic battery, child abuse and armed burglary cases in Nevada.

"He didn't have to shoot Jeffrey Hoffman to begin that shootout. He could've made a better choice," Kettwick said. "Thirteen people at that bar who had nothing to do with Terry Brown or Devondre Phillips wish he made a better choice, but he didn't."