A man has been charged with being a killer's getaway driver two days after his arrest for allegedly injuring a pedestrian in a hit-and-run crash in downtown Minneapolis.
Jal D. Wal, 25, of Apple Valley, was charged Tuesday in Hennepin County District Court with being an accomplice in connection with the fatal shooting near Loring Park in September of Birahim B. Gildersleve, 28, of Rochester, outside an after-hours party at the Fade Barber Lounge.
Wal appeared in court Wednesday afternoon and remains jailed in lieu of $500,000 bailn. A message was left with his attorney seeking a response to the allegations.
According to the charges:
Police were dispatched about 5:20 a.m. on Sept. 18 to the intersection of Harmon Place and Maple Street, where they saw Gildersleve with gunshot wounds to right leg and chest. Emergency responders took him to HCMC, where he was pronounced dead 40 minutes later.
About two hours before the shooting, four people walked from Wal's SUV to the front of the barbershop and then back to the vehicle shortly after 5:10 a.m.
Recordings from a license plate reader and video surveillance revealed that shortly before the shooting a man got out of an SUV owned by Wal and walked to where Gildersleve was standing, and a flash from a gun's muzzle followed. The shooter ran back to the SUV, and Wal drove off.
Law enforcement located the SUV parked outside Wal's home and seized the vehicle. The alleged shooter's fingerprints were lifted from the passenger door. Law enforcement identified him by name as a 26-year-old man from Minneapolis whose "whereabouts are still unknown." As of Wednesday there was no public record of the suspected gunman being charged. The Star Tribune generally does not identify suspects before they are charged.
