Authorities have charged a 25-year-old Minneapolis man in a high-speed car chase that killed one man in the city's Shingle Creek neighborhood last week.
Dyante L. Mix was charged Tuesday with one count each of second- and third-degree murder, as well as criminal vehicular homicide, in the rolling gun battle that left 22-year-old St. Paul resident Kelontay Croom's vehicle wrapped around a tree.
Croom died of injuries suffered in the early morning crash in the area of 53rd and Logan avenues N. on March 17, the Hennepin County medical examiner's office said on Friday. His death was the city's fourth homicide of the year, police records show.
The accident, which injured at least two others, stemmed from two cars carrying members of feuding street gangs, according to a police source.
According to the criminal complaint, Mix was at a party in the 2300 block of 53rd Avenue N. when several males got into a heated argument that spilled outside. Another man took Mix's gun, which was on the table, along with his bullet-resistant vest, and attempted to leave the party.
The thief and Croom jumped in a sedan nearby and drove off, while Mix chased them in his sport utility vehicle — with a woman in the passenger seat — to get his weapon back, witnesses said.
When Mix's SUV got too close, the unidentified man shot at him with the gun he'd taken, charges said. Mix then rammed the sedan into a tree, and both vehicles crashed.
Croom, the sedan's driver, died at the scene. The shooter was taken to the hospital by relatives.
