A 20-year-old Minneapolis man was sentenced to three years in prison Tuesday in connection with a Richfield school shooting last winter that killed a 15-year-old boy and injured another student.
Man sentenced for assault in teen's fatal shooting outside Richfield school
One juror shared with the Star Tribune why they acquitted him of murder last month.
January 4, 2023 at 1:48AM
Alfredo Rosario Solis, 20, was convicted of second-degree assault last month for the shooting that killed Jahmari Kei'Fee Rice outside South Education Center Academy on the afternoon of Feb. 1, 2022. A jury found him not guilty on five of the six felony counts he faced, including second-degree murder, attempted murder and first-degree assault. An accomplice, Fernando Valdez-Alvarez, will be on trial for murder in February.
Solis appeared before Hennepin County District Judge Paul Scoggin on Tuesday morning.
"Mr. Solis, you are a very lucky man," Scoggin said to a nearly empty courtroom aside from media and attorneys. "I suggest that you take that luck and run with it for the rest of your life."
His sentence was the mandatory minimum and restricts him from ever possessing a firearm. He has credit for already serving 11 months, said his attorney, Matthew Jaimet.
"My client admitted to his very limited involvement in this and just wants to put it behind him," Jaimet said.
On Dec. 7, when a jury came back with the verdicts after a weeklong trial, Solis had an intense confrontation with Rice's father, Cortez Rice, before sheriff deputies escorted him out of the courtroom.
Cortez Rice was in disbelief over the acquittal, calling it "absurd." He said that prosecutors had all the evidence to convict Solis.
But one juror, who asked to be identified only as Michelle, a 50-year-old paralegal from Dayton, told the Star Tribune that the evidence and testimony wasn't there to convict Solis.
"It's known that [Valdez-Alvarez] was the shooter of the fatal shot. We [jurors] all know that," she said, adding that two witnesses identified him as the shooter.
Solis took the stand and admitted that he fired the gun up in the air as "warning shots," she said. And while he also admitted the murder weapon was his, it's unknown which suspect brought the gun to school.
"Did [Solis] do wrong? Absolutely. In my opinion, three years isn't enough," the juror said.
But as a paralegal and a mother with children who have been in the criminal justice system, she said the acquittal was not taken lightly.
"If I would've based my verdict on emotion, I would've found [Solis] guilty," she said. "The biggest thing I want that family to know is how hard that was, and it still haunts me. … I wanted so badly for them to have justice."
Police found a 9mm Glock 45 handgun in Solis' bedroom when the suspects were arrested at separate locations several hours after the gunfire killed Rice and hit another student, age 17, who was taken to HCMC by ambulance in critical condition.
Richfield police said a disagreement among students led to the shooting. The suspects and victims all attended South Education Center Academy and were acquaintances.
