A Minneapolis man has been given a 34-year prison sentence for taking part in last year’s fatal shooting of Casanova Carter, who authorities say was playing a video game in front of a window of a West Side St. Paul home when a flurry of bullets fired from outside struck him in the chest, back, face and neck.

Kendall Dvontae Pruitt of Minneapolis (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

Kendall Dvontae Pruitt, 26, and three other men were charged in Carter’s Feb. 1, 2022, murder. Pruitt, who was on supervised release for a federal conviction at the time of the murder, was sentenced Wednesday in Ramsey County District Court after pleading guilty to aiding and abetting second-degree intentional murder.

Carter was a member of the Latin Kings gang, according to police. The criminal complaints say Carter and Pruitt began “beefing” after Carter called him a “snitch” in a social media post. Carter also was being blamed by some for not stopping a murder that occurred in West St. Paul in June 2021.

Pruitt reached a plea deal with the Ramsey County attorney’s office in September. In exchange for the plea, both sides agreed that an aiding and abetting first-degree murder charge and three other grand jury charges would be dropped. They also agreed to the length of Wednesday’s prison sentence.

A grand jury in June also indicted Montez Dalray Davis, 25, of Minneapolis, and Delaquay Levius Williams, 29, of St. Paul, with aiding and abetting first-degree murder and other charges in connection with Pruitt’s killing.

The fourth suspect, Dai’quan Lamar Husten, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder six months after the three others were charged by the attorney’s office. Davis, Williams and Husten, 25, of St. Paul, all have pleaded not guilty and their cases are ongoing.

Criminal complaints

According to the criminal complaints, shortly after 10 p.m. Carter was sitting in a chair playing a video game in a home in the 700 block of Winslow Avenue when a flurry of shots rang out. Investigators recovered 18 spent casings outside the home that came from four guns.

Video surveillance from multiple places shows a Nissan Altima with no license plates drive past the home two minutes before the shooting and turn down a neighboring street. Shortly thereafter, four people walked into the yard.

Three of the four people went to the north side of the home, where Carter was playing a video game, according to the charges. Husten went to the driveway near the front door of the residence.

Multiple shots then are heard followed by a pause, then an additional volley of gunshots. The person standing near the front of the home shot at the front of the house. After the shooting, all four suspects ran back toward the Nissan Altima.

Earlier shooting

A ballistics analysis of a 9mm Luger handgun that investigators recovered at the scene was linked to a shooting that happened about four hours earlier in the parking lot of a store on Fourth Street East in St. Paul.

Surveillance video from the store and surrounding area shows a Nissan Altima that appears to be similar to the suspect’s vehicle from the homicide pull up. The rear passenger door opens, an arm is extended and fires in the direction of a vehicle in the parking lot.

Surveillance video from a Holiday gas station on Rice Street around 7:15 p.m. shows the same Nissan Altima drive up and a passenger enter the store and pay for gas. Police identified him as Pruitt and the driver of the car as Davis, who was wearing a distinctive lion’s head pendant, according to the complaints.

On Feb. 12, Davis exchanged gunfire with someone and was shot after an altercation at a Minneapolis gas station. Davis fled the scene in a Nissan Altima, which had license plates and registered to his girlfriend. Davis was treated for gunshot wounds to the shoulder and knee at North Memorial Hospital in Robbinsdale. There, Minneapolis police recovered a lion’s head pendant necklace from him.

Meanwhile, DNA swabs from the siding of the house under the window of the bedroom where Carter was shot were submitted to Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and came back as a partial profile match to Williams, the complaints say.

In an Aug. 3, 2022, interview with police, Husten admitted to firing several shots at the front door. He said Carter was killed because “word on the street was that people believe (Carter) could have and should have stopped” the West St. Paul homicide, Husten’s complaint states.

Frogtown fatal shooting

Just over a month after Pruitt’s killing, Williams fatally shot a man in an alley in St. Paul’s Frogtown neighborhood, according to a complaint in that case charging him with second-degree murder.

Emergency responders were sent to an alleyway behind the 600 block of Blair Avenue and discovered 31-year-old Regis A. Jones shot in the head. Police learned that neighbors heard a gunshot about 6:30 the night before.

“Police believe that Williams murdered (Jones) to keep him from talking about the murder of (Carter),” according to a complaint filed against a man accused of being an accomplice after the fact in Jones’ homicide. Williams has pleaded not guilty and the case is ongoing.

At the time of both murders, Williams was wanted by police for absconding from his Nov. 10 supervised release from Minnesota Correctional Facility-St. Cloud relating to a 2018 conviction for felony second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon, court records show.

Supervised release

In January 2022, Pruitt was sentenced to three years of supervised release for escaping from federal custody relating to a 2017 conviction for conspiracy to commit being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Dennis Gerhardstein, a spokesman for the Ramsey County attorney’s office, on Friday said a federal violation of his release conditions could be served consecutively with Wednesday’s state sentence if the federal court decides to impose such a ruling.

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