DULUTH — Patrick W. Battees, whose shot into a tense crowd killed his friend Juamada K. Anderson Jr., was found guilty Thursday of second-degree unintentional murder and reckless discharge of a firearm within a municipality.
Proctor man found guilty of unintentional murder in his friend's death
Patrick Battees fired into a tense crowd in May 2021, killing his friend Juamada Anderson.
January 13, 2023 at 4:59PM
The jury deliberated for 11 hours following a week of testimony in St. Louis County District Court. Battees, 19, claimed self-defense. He had been punched and his life threatened, his attorney JD Schmid told the jury during opening statements last week.
A sentencing date has not been set. The second-degree murder charge carries a sentence of between 11 and 16 years and the firearm offense sentence is just more than 12 months, according to state guidelines.
Battees, of Proctor, was 17 at the time of the shooting and was originally charged in juvenile court. He was certified to stand trial as an adult in mid-October.
Surveillance videos from May 22, 2021, show Battees and Anderson hanging out on a porch in Duluth's Central Hillside. A crowd gathered, there was a scuffle and guns were drawn. Battees, who had been punched, broke away, then turned back and fired his .45 caliber gun into the mass of people. Anderson, 22, was shot in the head and died soon after.
