Law enforcement has captured in Texas a co-defendant in the fatal drive-by shooting of a woman 2 months ago in north Minneapolis.
Derrick Lamond Johnson Sr., 51, of Minneapolis, was chased down on foot by officers in Houston and arrested last week in connection with the death on Aug. 9 of 34-year-old Stevi Rae Palacio, of Minneapolis, near Thomas and Oak Park avenues N.
A Hennepin County sheriff's sergeant partnered with the FBI in Texas to track down Johnson, the Sheriff's Office said Tuesday.
Johnson remains held in the Harris County jail pending his return to Minnesota. Minneapolis police say he was the getaway driver for 26-year-old Tremaine M. Bucholz of Dent, Minn.
Bucholz was charged in Hennepin County District Court last month with second-degree murder and illegal weapons possession. He remains held in lieu of $600,000 bail ahead of a Nov. 14 court appearance.
According to the charges:
Reported gunfire shortly after midnight sent officers to the scene, where they found Palacio on the sidewalk shot in the back. She was taken by emergency responders to HCMC, where she was soon pronounced dead.
Police obtained video from a resident's doorbell camera, and it captured a cargo van stopping alongside Palacio before a gunshot from someone in the front passenger seat wounded her. Palacio started running, and the same person fired seven more shots, with one hitting her in the back.
Police found the van a day later parked in the underground garage of an apartment complex in the 2200 block of Golden Valley Road where Johnson lives. Its passenger-side window was shattered from the gunfire coming from inside the vehicle.
Investigators collected from the van fingerprints of Bucholz and Johnson.
Police arrested Bucholz on Sept. 5. He admitted being in the van but did not confess to shooting Palacio. The charges also failed to point to a motive for the killing.
A law enforcement search of Bucholz's cellphone revealed a video of him with a semiautomatic gun. Someone attempted to delete the video two days after the shooting.