After a 22-year-old spotted a man from an opposing gang in St. Paul earlier this month, he walked up to his car — gun in hand — and started firing into his Jeep, authorities say.
Jeriko Boykin Sr., 23, was fatally shot in the back and head on the city’s West Side. Boykin’s 4-year-old son, who was also in the vehicle at the time, was struck in the foot and survived.
Prosecutors charged Jeremy Carpenter on Thursday with second-degree murder in Boykin’s death and attempted murder for the boy’s injuries, according to a criminal complaint filed in Ramsey County District Court.
One of Boykin’s sisters, Jaralyn Roberts, said she doesn’t believe his killing was gang related. She said she’s thankful for the arrest and expects justice to be served.
“No one deserves to die the way my brother died,” Roberts said. “He was a good man and a loving father. I am praying for and seeking justice for my brother and for my nephew.”
Boykin’s son is “doing as good as he can be, considering everything that happened,” Roberts said Thursday.
Police arrested Carpenter, of Inver Grove Heights, after witnesses provided a description of the vehicle he was a passenger in that night, and two of the men he was driving around with identified him as the shooter, the complaint said.
DISTINCTIVE SUSPECT VEHICLE
Officers responded to the shooting on South Wasbasha Street near Congress Street about 5 p.m. on Oct. 6 and found a Jeep that had flipped upside down. Boykin, who was buckled into the driver’s seat, was bleeding from his head.
Both he and his son were taken to Regions Hospital, where Boykin died soon afterward.
Witnesses told police they saw a distinctive vehicle with three people inside it approach Boykin’s vehicle that night. The blue or black four-door was missing a front tire hubcap, had a dent in the seam of the driver’s door and a yellow design on the gas tank cover, they reported.
St. Paul police sent out the description to nearby law enforcement agencies, and Minneapolis police alerted them that they stopped a vehicle that appeared to match the description Oct. 7, and provided the names of the occupants.
Police tracked down one of them Oct. 15, and he admitted he was driving the vehicle the night of the shooting. He said Carpenter, who goes by the nickname “Insane,” was the shooter, according to the complaint.
He explained that he, Carpenter and another man were driving around that night and, at some point, Carpenter spotted Boykin in another vehicle, charges say.
Carpenter got out of the car and the man thought he was going to buy marijuana from Boykin, the complaint said.
Instead, he said he heard shots and watched as Carpenter ran back to his vehicle and hopped into the passenger seat, charges say.
The man said he dropped Carpenter off a short time later.
He added that he believed the shooting was motivated by conflict between gangs affiliated with St. Paul’s East Side and the western portion of the city.
Roberts, Boykin’s sister, said she does not think gangs were “the motive behind his death because that’s not who he was and not what he was working towards. That wasn’t his identity or his focus.”
SUSPECT CALLED MAN HIS OPPOSITION
Police tracked down the other passenger from that evening, and he also said Carpenter was the shooter. He said Carpenter saw Boykin at a red light and the men exchanged words, charges say.
Carpenter said he was previously in prison with Boykin, and that Boykin was his “op,” which is gang language for opposition, the complaint said. The man reported that Carpenter instructed the driver to pull over.
The man said he heard gunshots and saw Carpenter run back to their car, instructing them to “go, go” because “I shot his (expletive) up,” charges say.
On Tuesday, officers spotted Carpenter riding in another vehicle. A loaded handgun was found under the seat in front of him, and police arrested him, according to the complaint.
Carpenter, who remains jailed, told an investigator he had no involvement in the killing. His attorney could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Carpenter was convicted in 2015 of being an ineligible person in possession of a firearm. As a juvenile, he was adjudicated delinquent of robbery in 2013.
Mara H. Gottfried contributed to this report.