As a convicted man attempted to apologize Wednesday in Hennepin County District Court for killing a 6-year-old girl during a high-speed chase with police last summer, the judge stopped him with a stern interjection.
"It wasn't a mistake. It was intentional, outrageous conduct, pure and simple," Judge Peter Cahill told Hakeem W. Muhammad. "There is nothing you can say to put yourself in good light. No matter what punishment I can give you, it can't be compared to the pain the family feels."
Muhammad, 29, received the maximum penalty of nearly 23 years after pleading guilty to two felony counts, causing a death and inflicting great bodily harm while fleeing police, in connection with the collision at N. 53rd and Humboldt avenues that killed Blessings McLaurin-Grey, a Disney princess-obsessed girl who beat the odds of a rare chromosomal disorder only to have her life snuffed out by Muhammad as she headed home from the pool last summer on July 15. Blessings' 15-year-old cousin was also severely injured in the crash. Wanted on an outstanding murder warrant, he topped speeds of 90 mph on Brooklyn Center residential streets before colliding with a car carrying Blessings and her cousins.
"What I thought was going to be a fun day for my kids and niece turned out to be one of the worst days of my life," Blessings' aunt April McHerron said.
She can't shake that feeling of helplessness or the look on the kids' faces out of her head.
Grief filled the courtroom, but not only from Blessings' family. Across the aisle sat loved ones of Devan Dampier, 29, who Muhammad is accused of fatally shooting on April 7, 2022, in north Minneapolis.
Dampier's 11-year-old daughter Peyton Parayno said she is sad, confused and angry that her dad, a "kind-hearted man," is gone but Muhammad is still here.
"He had no reason to hurt him or that little girl," Parayno cried out while being held tightly by her mother, Alsaisha Lingbeck, Dampier's fiancée.
