A Greensboro man will spend as many as 20 years behind bars after pleading guilty to killing a 19-year-old during an early-morning shooting on South Elm Street three years ago. Andrew Dajuan Jemison was sentenced to 190 to 240 months in state prison after admitting to second-degree murder in the 2023 death of Taivaski Kewann Davenport.
Jemison entered his plea in Guilford County Superior Court on Monday, according to WXLV, which reported that Judge Lisa Johnson-Tonkins handed down the sentence. The case had originally been charged as first-degree murder.
A Disorder Call That Turned Deadly
The shooting unfolded in the early hours of November 18, 2023, when Greensboro police officers responded to a report of a disorder and shooting in the 500 block of South Elm Street at around 12:54 a.m., per myfox8.com. Officers found Davenport suffering from a gunshot wound, and he was rushed to a local hospital by EMS with life-threatening injuries. He later died from those injuries, and police investigated the case as a homicide.
Investigators took Jemison, who was 33 at the time, into custody and charged him with first-degree murder, the station's report noted. Police said preliminary information indicated the shooting was not connected to any business on the block, according to wfmynews2.com.
A Stretch of Elm Street With a Violent History
South Elm Street has seen deadly gun violence before. Back in 2014, a shootout left one person dead and four others injured outside a pair of nightclubs on the same stretch, with roughly two dozen shots fired that night, according to greensboro.com.
Jemison's guilty plea closes out a case that began nearly three years ago with a frantic early-morning call and ended with a Guilford County courtroom sentencing. Davenport, who was just 19 when he died, had been identified by police in the days following the shooting as the victim found wounded on South Elm Street.
