Gang member sent to prison for driving into group at a St. Paul bar, injuring woman

Nick Ferraro, Pioneer Press
·3 min read
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A 24-year-old gang member was sentenced to nearly six years in prison for driving his SUV into a group of people at a St. Paul bar — causing serious injuries to a 21-year-old woman — following an argument with two men.

Jaqwan Lamar House of St. Paul was convicted Monday of first-degree assault-great bodily harm in connection with last fall’s incident at St. Paul Tap that also resulted in House being shot in the shoulder as he drove from the scene.

Ramsey County District Judge Kelly Olmstead sentenced House to 70 months in prison, giving him credit for six days already served in custody.

At the time of the shooting, House was on probation after a January 2021 conviction for possessing a gun without a permit in July 2019. He also had two pending charges from December 2020: possessing a gun without a permit and committing a crime while wearing a bullet-resistant vest.

According to the criminal complaint, St. Paul police officers were dispatched to the bar at 825 Jefferson Ave. about 8:45 p.m. on Sept. 26 after a report of a shooting and someone being struck by a vehicle.

When they arrived, they found the woman crying in agony on the ground by the patio area. She was later diagnosed at Regions Hospital with having two broken shin bones, other broken bones in her left leg and broken bones in her face.

According to witnesses at the scene, the incident began with two groups arguing over “East Side vs. West Side.”

Surveillance video from an Uber car shows the woman and the two men walking through the parking lot toward the car. A black Mercedes-Benz SUV, driven by House, drove into the group. The woman ended up on the SUV’s hood. The two men pulled out guns and fired at the SUV, the complaint states.

House was later dropped off at Regions Hospital with two gunshot wounds to his shoulder. House, who police say is a member of the Ham Crazy gang, declined to give a statement to police.

Officers found the Mercedes-Benz near House’s St. Paul residence. The SUV had damage to a front fender, handprints and smears on the hood and bullet holes to the driver’s side window and a passenger side window.

The Ramsey County attorney’s office has not been presented cases against the men who fired at House outside the bar, spokesman Dennis Gerhardstein said Thursday.

In January 2021, House was given two years of supervised probation for possessing a gun without a permit in 2019.

This past February he pleaded guilty to the 2020 charge of possessing a gun without a permit, while the charge of committing a crime while wearing a bullet-resistant vest was dismissed. He was given 360 days in the Ramsey County Correctional Facility — a sentence that was then stayed — and put on electronic home monitoring for 39 days and two years of probation.

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