A 25-year-old man is facing felony charges in the fatal shooting of another man in the parking lot of a Target store on the East Side of St. Paul.
Authorities charged Thomas Derek Coleman of St. Paul with one count of second-degree murder and one count of second-degree assault with a deadly weapon. Coleman appeared in Ramsey County District Court on Thursday and his bail was set at $2.5 million.
St. Paul police arrested Coleman on Wednesday on suspicion of killing Jadonn Taylor. Charging documents say Taylor was at Target on April 6 with his girlfriend, shopping for their daughter's Easter presents, when Coleman shot at the back of their vehicle and through the driver's side door. Taylor was hit multiple times and died at a nearby fire station, where staff performed CPR.
Officers found nine spent shell casings in the store parking lot at 1744 Suburban Av. Four bullets were recovered from the Mazda in which Taylor was a passenger.
"It's very brazen — the fact that somebody would engage in a shooting in the middle of a Target parking lot at 10 a.m. on a Thursday is beyond anybody's normal thought pattern," St. Paul Police Sgt. Mike Ernster said the day of the shooting. "The fact that people are choosing to use weapons possibly to solve differences or whatever they're doing is crazy."
Authorities said the shooting may have been in retaliation for a previous killing.
Taylor's girlfriend said Taylor had been acting strangely since his friend was charged with killing 21-year-old Gabriella Dehoyos during a drive-by shooting. Documents say Dehoyos was in the car with a gang member affiliated with the East Side. Taylor and his friend were allegedly associated with a West Side gang.
Authorities said they believe Coleman is an East Side gang member who spotted the couple at Target while out with his girlfriend, who owns the Chrysler 300 that Coleman rode away in.
