Charges: Friendly fire killed man standing among group who shot at moving SUV in south Minneapolis

A 20-year-old man was killed by friendly fire as he and others unleashed a volley of gunfire at a moving SUV in south Minneapolis late last year, according to charges.

Damari T. Douglas, 19, of Minneapolis was charged Tuesday in Hennepin County District Court with first-degree riot resulting in death, second-degree assault and illegal gun possession in connection with the shooting in December of Ty’Shawn Maurice Lyons of Rochester.

Douglas also was charged this week by federal prosecutors with being a felon in possession of a firearm stemming from a theft conviction last year. He remains in federal custody in the Sherburne County jail ahead of an appearance Thursday in U.S. District Court. An attorney for Douglas declined Wednesday to respond to the allegations.

Lyons’ death came among a spate of shootings that weekend that killed four and wounded at least seven others across the city.

According to police, and state and federal charges:

Shortly after 2:30 a.m. on Dec. 3, officers arrived at S. Grand Avenue just north of W. Lake Street and found Lyons with a gunshot wound to the head. Emergency medical personnel took him to HCMC, where he died.

The officers located 27 discharged cartridge casings from at least three guns. Near Lyons’ body was a 9-millimeter handgun that had been fired.

“The group of males continued to fire upon the SUV until it ... traveled out of view,” read the state’s criminal complaint, which did not explain why the vehicle was targeted.

A moment later, Lyons “abruptly fell to the ground, consistent with being struck in the head by a bullet fired by one of his companions who had joined him in shooting at the SUV,” the complaint continued.

Police investigators initially through Lyons was shot by someone in the SUV, but the state charges explained that the vehicle’s windows were “rolled up during the incident and was not the source of the gunfire.”

Witnesses and people who knew Lyons helped investigators identify Douglas as one of the shooters. A police reconstruction of the shooting using video and other evidence determined that Douglas “was the only shooter in a position to have fired the shot which struck and killed [Lyons],” the charges read.

Law enforcement officers arrived at Douglas’ home Friday, announced themselves and saw a 9-millimeter gun thrown from his bedroom window. It was altered with a “switch” to make it fully automatic. Police searched his bedroom and seized a pistol and loaded magazine.