Man charged in Brooklyn Park homicide had connection to 2022 Mall of America fatal shooting

A 19-year-old Coon Rapids man, who played a role in a 2022 fatal shooting at the Mall of America, is facing murder charges in connection with an apparent targeted shooting earlier this month in Brooklyn Park.

Citing witnesses, surveillance footage and cell phone data, prosecutors say that Marquan D. Tucker waited in a parking lot Dec. 7 before opening fire on two people when they exited a business in the 8000 block of Brooklyn Boulevard.

The two victims returned fire, though one was wounded and the other, Ramone R. Blue, 23, of Stewartville, Minn., was killed. The complaint, filed Friday, offers no motive for the shooting.

The shooting happened about seven months after Tucker was discharged from court monitoring related to the 2022 fatal shooting of 19-year-old Johntae Hudson in a department store at the Mall of America, according to court records.

Tucker was charged with third-degree riot in the case and was adjudicated as delinquent, or found guilty, court records said. He was one of three teens who confronted or chased Hudson into the store where the shooting happened. The two teens who carried guns received long prison sentences.

Tucker was being held Friday at the Hennepin County jail. It wasn’t clear if he yet had an attorney.

According to the criminal complaint:

Surveillance video shows a black BMW pull into the parking lot in Brooklyn Park around 1:30 p.m. on Dec. 7. As the two victims exit a business, a man leaves the passenger seat of the BMW, hides behind another car and fires about 16 shots. The gunman then flees in the BMW.

Coon Rapids police informed Brooklyn Park police that they attempted to stop a similar vehicle nine days earlier and had identified the driver as Tucker, who fled and was not apprehended. The BMW was later determined to be stolen.

Police obtained Tucker’s cell phone number and tracked his movements on the day of the shooting. According to prosecutors, those records along with surveillance footage and witness statements show that he left a Coon Rapids apartment shortly before 1:30 p.m. that day with another male. A matching BMW was seen leaving the apartment complex.

After the shooting, Tucker was seen in an alley where the BMW was abandoned in Minneapolis. Witnesses identified him in the clothes he was wearing in surveillance footage before and after the shooting.

An obituary for Blue said he was a father of two, worked in construction and enjoyed video games and cooking.

“Ramone was full of life, love, and potential,” Blue’s sister Samone wrote on a GoFundMe page. “He didn’t deserve to leave this world so soon.”

Paul Walsh of the Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this story.