A 40-year-old man has pleaded guilty to a murder in Minneapolis that he committed in 2019 as he's serving a prison sentence for the death of another man in the city that same summer.
Derrick Blanton, of Minneapolis, entered his plea Monday in Hennepin County District to second-degree intentional murder in connection with the shooting of Gregory Hoskins, 37, on July 21, 2019, outside the victim's home in the 1500 block of N. Plymouth Avenue.
The plea agreement calls for Blanton to be sentenced to a term of about 24½ years. Blanton is currently serving an 8½-year term for the fatal shooting in August 2019 of 29-year-old Isiah Smith. The two terms will be served concurrently, with roughly two-thirds of the murder sentence spent in prison and the balance on supervised release.
In the first shooting, a witness told police that Hoskins was carrying groceries to his Near North neighborhood house, when a car pulled up and a man fired multiple shots at Hoskins, according to the criminal complaint.
Hoskins' brother, Divittin Hoskins, 32, died two years earlier under similar circumstances. Police said at the time that Divittin Hoskins was killed in retaliation for an earlier shooting.
In August 2019, Blanton fatally shot Smith, his then-girlfriend's former boyfriend.
Blanton was originally charged with second-degree murder, but jurors convicted him of a lesser count due to a variety of contributing factors, according to the Hennepin County Attorney's Office. The office said in a statement that Blanton acted in the "heat of passion" and was provoked by Smith.
Blanton shot Smith several times after they fought over the woman at her apartment in south Minneapolis. Smith, of Minneapolis, had a child with the woman and would stop by unannounced to see the child. Blanton was dating the woman at the time.
