A little more than 11 months ago, DeAndre Neal-Hill sent a handwritten letter to Ramsey County District Judge Rosanne Nathanson from the county workhouse, where he was serving a six-month sentence for a probation violation.
"I know I have made some terrible choices and bad decisions," he wrote, "but I know I'm a better person then how it looks an seems. I just want to get out an start my life completely over."
Neal-Hill talked about his older brother, Kerry M. Neal-Hill, who had been shot to death three weeks earlier and how much he regretted not being able to comfort his parents and his two remaining brothers. He talked about going back to school, getting a part-time job and chasing "my dream of getting a degree in X-ray technician as planed."
He was released in June 2008 after serving his time, but this week Neal-Hill's dreams were put on hold indefinitely when he was charged in Ramsey County with first-degree attempted murder, drive-by discharge of a firearm, two counts of second-degree assault and possession of a firearm by a felon. The charges are all felonies.
Firing shots at rivals
The complaint filed Monday said Neal-Hill, now 21, was one of several men allegedly trading shots with rival gang members on April 5 on St. Paul's East Side.
A man identified in court documents by the initials D.A.B. told police that Neal-Hill called him that day, saying that he was going to shoot him and that D.A.B. would be another "unsolved homicide."
D.A.B. and another person got into a red Monte Carlo, and while driving on Larpenteur Avenue toward Jackson Street, they saw a man identified as Lavalle Eugene Anderson firing shots at them. In another car, they saw Neal-Hill and Scott P. Christian, who also fired at them, D.A.B. told police, according to the complaint.
