St. Paul man sentenced for fatal drive-by shooting, wounding another man four days later

Nick Ferraro, Pioneer Press
Updated ·4 min read

A St. Paul man was sentenced to nearly 26 years in prison Monday for fatally shooting a man in the head outside a North End home, then wounding another man who was headed to church with family on the city’s East Side four days later.

Kavion Jayvon Barnett, 29, admitted in January to shooting James Jeffrey King Sr., who was sitting in his pickup truck in his driveway when he was shot in the temple on Feb. 9, 2022, and died March 1. Barnett also pleaded guilty to shooting a 45-year-old man who was driving on the Earl Street Bridge with his wife and two children on Feb. 13. That man was shot in the arm.

Ramsey County District Judge Sophia Y. Vuelo followed the Jan. 29 plea agreement, which called for 22 years and three months for King’s killing and nearly 3½ years for the drive-by shooting. The sentences will run consecutively.

At the time of the shootings, Barnett was on supervised conditional release while awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to an August 2021 shootout in St. Paul. In that case, Barnett, another man who was also charged and a woman were injured. In April 2022, he was sentenced to three years and three months for the shooting.

According to the murder complaint, officers were sent to the 200 block of Front Avenue on a report of a shooting just before 10 a.m. and found King in the driver’s seat of his Ford F-150 parked in his driveway. The driver’s window was partially shattered, and King had a gunshot wound to his left temple.

A neighbor told police he heard a gunshot the previous night, but he didn’t think anything about it because the sound of gunshots are not unusual in the neighborhood.

Officers found a .45-caliber shell casing near Front Avenue and Woodbridge Street. It later matched a casing found after the Earl Street Bridge shooting.

A man contacted homicide investigators and said he had witnessed King’s shooting. He said a Honda Odyssey minivan stopped at Woodbridge Street and Front Avenue, where the driver pointed a gun out the window and shot once.

Further investigation revealed that Barnett had ties to a silver Honda Odyssey that was involved in the bridge shooting. About four hours after the shooting, surveillance video showed Barnett abandon the minivan he’d been driving. Delaquay Levius Williams got out of the passenger side of the minivan.

Williams, 29, of St. Paul, faces charges in two St. Paul 2022 murders — one on Feb. 1, the other March 4. The cases are pending in court.

Analysis of a casing found in the Earl Street Bridge shooting showed the handgun was the same one allegedly used by Williams in the March homicide, according to the criminal complaint against Barnett.

‘Did not intend to kill’

Barnett was arrested on April 11, 2022, and spoke with investigators. When shown surveillance photos from both incidents, he admitted he was the person driving the minivan over the Earl Street Bridge and in the area of King’s shooting, charges say.

Barnett initially denied shooting anyone, then said it was “a manslaughter case because he did not intend to kill (King),” the charges read. “Barnett said he had prior confrontations with JK about loud music. The most recent incident occurred a couple of nights before the shooting.”

Barnett said he saw King in his driveway and that King “started talking crazy” and he shot him once from the minivan, the charges read. Barnett said he only intended to scare King.

When asked about the bridge shooting, Barnett said he shot once at the car because he thought it was a rival gang member — not a family on their way to church, charges said.

After admitting to investigators he fired a .45-caliber handgun in both incidents, Barnett claimed he threw the gun in the river, the charges said. But officers told him that was a lie, since the gun had been used in the March 4 murder after Barnett’s two shooting incidents. He refused to tell investigators who he gave the gun to.

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