A 22-year-old man was sentenced on Monday to 8 1/2 years in prison for the shooting death last September of a 24-year-old man in St. Paul's Dayton's Bluff neighborhood.
Dekoda M. Galtney was shot in the chest as he got out of a car near the corner of E. 4th Street and Bates Avenue on Sept. 28. The shooting, which occurred about 6:30 p.m., sent bystanders and children fleeing.
The alleged gunman, Adrian R. Flowers, entered an Alford plea of guilty to second-degree unintentional murder in the incident as part of a plea deal in which an original charge of second-degree intentional murder was dismissed.
The Alford plea allowed Flowers to maintain his innocence while acknowledging there was sufficient evidence to convict him.
According to the charges, a witness who had been riding with Galtney in a Chevrolet Impala on Sept. 28 said that the Impala's occupants had been in an altercation earlier that day with Flowers and others.
At the time of the shooting, friends said that Galtney, a confirmed gang member, was trying to better his life after serving three years in prison. He had been released from prison in June 2010 and was on intensive supervised release at the time of his death.
Authorities arrested Flowers in a Bloomington hotel room in December after information about his whereabouts was provided to members of the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force and the St. Paul police homicide unit.
In addition to the prison time, Flowers was ordered Monday to pay $3,514 in restitution, $1,550 of which is to go to Galtney's mother.
