A 21-year-old Fridley man is now charged with murder after a Memorial Day drive-by shooting in north Minneapolis that left one man dead and two others wounded. Investigators say court-ordered GPS tracking and cellphone data put him at the scene, capping a case that started with dozens of shell casings scattered across two city blocks.
How police say they tracked him
According to a criminal complaint, officers first responded to a shooting on Penn Avenue North on May 24, then found another victim dead on Columbus Avenue South shortly after midnight the next day. Investigators say they collected 32 shell casings from six different guns across the two locations, and that a 9mm casing from the Memorial Day scene matched one recovered in the earlier Penn Avenue shooting.
Detectives say GPS data from the suspect’s court-ordered ankle monitor, combined with cellphone records, placed him at the scene of the violence. He was arrested on June 5, according to FOX 9.
What investigators say happened
Authorities say a witness at the Penn Avenue shooting identified the suspect as the gunman. The Memorial Day case, investigators allege, was a drive-by in which someone in a vehicle opened fire on three people, killing one and injuring two.
According to the complaint, the suspect later told detectives he was the shooter in the Penn Avenue incident and said he drove two friends to a second location knowing they were planning a confrontation. He also allegedly admitted handing his gun to a friend after that friend ran out of ammunition. Police have not publicly identified a motive and say no additional arrests have been announced.
Record shows prior federal gun case
Reporting from the Star Tribune shows that a man with the same name faced federal firearms charges in 2024 after officers recovered a handgun equipped with a machine-gun conversion “switch.” That earlier reporting noted the case was unsealed in federal court and referenced juvenile convictions tied to a prior arrest, context that helps explain investigators’ focus on the suspect’s history with guns.
What GPS monitoring can and cannot do
Ankle monitors can give investigators a detailed trail of where someone has been, but they are far from a silver bullet for public safety and crime prevention. They also come with well-documented tradeoffs.
The ACLU has argued that GPS surveillance often fails to meaningfully reduce reoffending and can create new harms, including technical glitches, social stigma and a wider net of surveillance. That ongoing policy debate hangs in the background of this case, where location data from a monitor sits at the center of the prosecution’s timeline.
Legal next steps
Prosecutors filed murder charges Monday, and the case will now move through Hennepin County District Court. As of the latest reporting, public court filings and hearing dates had not yet appeared online.
Investigators say they are still working to clarify a motive and determine whether others might face charges. The criminal complaint summarized in local coverage is expected to be a key document for prosecutors as the case proceeds, according to FOX 9.
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