A jury has convicted a 27-year-old man of murder for gunning down a passenger in another car during a road rage confrontation that began with an argument at a red light and ended with gunfire outside a St. Paul tobacco shop. Ian Loi Bursey was found guilty on all counts, including two counts of second-degree murder and one count of drive-by shooting at an occupied vehicle, in connection with the killing of 26-year-old Tajai Evans.
According to KSTP, the confrontation began after an argument at a red light, when Bursey followed the car in which Evans was a passenger, according to charging documents. Bursey claimed the other car had cut him off about five times on Interstate 35, and he tailed the vehicle to a tobacco shop near Front and Dale streets. Separately, charging documents cited by Bring Me The News describe the dispute beginning the evening of November 4, 2024, when Bursey allegedly brake-checked Evans's car on Interstate 35E before exiting at Maryland Avenue and pursuing the vehicle to the same tobacco shop.
Once at the shop, Bursey threw something at the other car, and Evans approached him after noticing his vehicle, per KSTP's report. Charging documents indicate Evans then punched Bursey, after which Bursey grabbed a gun and shot at him. Bursey told investigators he fired in self-defense and did not mean to kill Evans, saying he thought the other men might have had weapons because they were holding their pockets and acting, in his words, kind of sketchy.
Crash, Arrest, and a Bloody Nose
The vehicle carrying Evans crashed at 12th and Cedar Streets, where police found him mortally wounded, the outlet reported. Officers arrested Bursey at the shooting scene holding a tissue to his bloody nose after he called 911 claiming he had fired in self-defense following a physical assault. The Ramsey County Medical Examiner later identified Evans, a St. Paul resident, as the man killed in the shooting on the 500 block of Front Avenue in the city's North End neighborhood, according to CBS News, which reported an approximately 7:30 p.m. 911 call in the area.
Evans was a father of two young children, a 4-year-old daughter and a 1-year-old son, and his family organized a community fundraiser to cover his funeral expenses, Bring Me The News reported.
Why the Self-Defense Claim Failed
Bursey's defense ran into a legal standard that Minnesota's highest court had sharpened just months before the shooting. In August 2024, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled in State v. Blevins that, in second-degree assault cases involving a dangerous weapon, people claiming self-defense have a legal duty to retreat when reasonably possible before brandishing or using a deadly weapon in public, as reported by MPR News. The 4-2 decision was a narrow extension of that rule to such cases and did not cover cases without a dangerous weapon.
That standard remained contested statewide even after Bursey's arrest. The Minnesota House of Representatives rejected House File 13 in March 2025, a proposal that would have eliminated the duty to retreat in public self-defense encounters, according to the Minnesota House of Representatives Session Daily. The bill failed on a 67-65 floor vote.
What Bursey Now Faces
Under Minnesota Statute § 609.19, a conviction for second-degree murder, whether intentional or committed during a drive-by shooting, carries a statutory maximum sentence of up to 40 years in prison, per the Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Separately, recklessly discharging a firearm from or after exiting a vehicle toward a person or an occupied vehicle is a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $20,000 under Minnesota Statute § 609.66, Subdivision 1e(b).
A Broader Pattern of Highway Violence
The case lands amid other incidents across the Twin Cities metro area, including a freeway shooting that critically wounded a man on Interstate 94 in Minneapolis. Axios Twin Cities reported 33 homicides in St. Paul in 2024 and a decrease in 2025.
