Teen boy, mother arrested in fatal Mall of America shooting
A 17-year-old boy and his mother were both taken into custody Tuesday in connection with a shooting last month at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, which left a man dead.
Lavon Longstreet was arrested by U.S. Marshals at a home in Decatur, Georgia, said Bloomington Police Chief Booker Hodges in a news conference. Longstreet is being held on charges of second-degree murder and second-degree assault. He is awaiting extradition.
Longstreet's mother, Erica McMillian, was also arrested Tuesday in Golden Valley, a city in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area. McMillian is accused of driving Longstreet from Minnesota to Georgia immediately following the shooting. She is being held on charges of aiding and abetting, Hodges said.
Also arrested at the home in Decatur was 30-year-old Eriajah Johnson, also on charges of aiding and abetting, Hodges said.
The fatal shooting occurred on the evening of Dec. 23 on the first floor of Nordstrom inside the Mall of America. The victim, identified by his family as 19-year-old Johntae Hudson, died at the scene. The shooting prompted a more than one-hour lockdown of the mall. Hodges said that surveillance video showed that the shooting appeared to have been precipitated by "some kind of altercation between two groups" of males.
The following day, on Dec. 24, five suspects were arrested in a raid at the nearby city of St. Louis Park. Three of those suspects were 17-year-old juveniles, and two were 18-year-old adults, Hodges said at the time.
On Dec. 29, one of those arrested, 18-year-old Taeshawn Adams-Wright, was charged by the Hennepin County Attorney's Office with aiding and abetting second-degree intentional murder and aiding and abetting second-degree assault. Two of the 17-year-old boys were charged with second-degree riot.
On Tuesday, Hodges said that Longstreet and Adams-Wright "stood over" Hudson and "fired multiple rounds into his body."
Furthermore, Hodges disclosed that forensics determined that shell casings recovered at the murder scene matched casings found at several crime scenes in Minneapolis and St. Paul "over the last year and a half."
"I fully expect that there's probably going to be some more arrests that come out of this," Hodges said.
The shooting marked the second time in five months that the Mall of America had been placed on lockdown due to gunfire. On Aug. 4, shots were fired near the cash registers of a Nike store, but no injuries occurred.
That shooting caused chaos, sending panicked customers and employees running for safety. Hodges said at the time that there had also been an altercation between two groups. One of the groups left, but then returned, and one person fired three shots into the store, Hodges said.
Two men suspected of being involved in the shooting were arrested days later following a multiagency manhunt. Three others were also arrested, accused of helping the two men escape.
The mall began testing the use of a "weapons detection system" at its north entrance in October, according to CBS Minnesota.