Scene of Truck Park gunfight was ‘chaos,’ St. Paul officer says at opening of shooter’s murder trial

Nick Ferraro, Pioneer Press
Updated ·5 min read
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Terry Brown’s murder trial began Wednesday with the aftermath of the mass shooting at the Seventh Street Truck Park bar in St. Paul.

In a St. Paul police officer’s body-camera video, people are seen huddled over the wounded. Some are yelling for help, others moaning in pain.

“It was chaos,” officer Joshua Needham said when asked on the witness stand what he saw when he pulled up to the scene of the Oct. 10, 2021, shooting.

Some of the 15 who were shot were lying on the sidewalk. Marquisha Wiley and others did not make it out of the bar and lie on the bar floor. Wiley, 27, was the lone person who died, struck by a bullet fired by Brown.

“Fifteen people, 15 bodies, crawling, running, getting dragged across the floor with bullet holes,” Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Treye Kettwick told jurors during the state’s opening statement. “And one woman lying in a bar dead, all because two people decided to have a shootout in a crowded bar with complete disregard for everybody else.”

Brown, 34, of St. Paul, faces a count of second-degree murder for killing Wiley and four counts of attempted murder for injuring four others. Prosecutors added a sixth charge this week: possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

In February, jurors found the other gunman, Devondre Phillips, guilty of eight counts of attempted murder for his role in the deadly gunfight. The 31-year-old is awaiting sentencing.

“Saturday nights on West Seventh in downtown St. Paul are for fun,” Kettwick told jurors Wednesday. “Drinking, dancing, hanging out with friends, enjoying a good time. It’s not a place to get shot by Terry Brown.”

Brown’s attorney, Stephen Grigsby, laid out a self-defense claim, telling jurors that Phillips was “the initial aggressor” — he fired first, hitting Jeffrey Hoffman, Brown’s friend, and then at Brown, who returned shots.

Grigsby said he is not planning to introduce evidence, that “largely, in this case, all of the evidence is caught on a five-second video” of the shooting. He said it will show Brown “being fired upon without provocation” and that “everything he did happened after that fact.”

“He is the victim of an attempted murder in that bar,” Grigsby said. “And that’s the key.”

Kettwick asked jurors to keep in mind during the trial and ask themselves: “What does a reasonable person do in this situation? What does a person acting honestly and in good faith do in this situation?”

“A reasonable person does not move to engage in a shootout with an enemy, causing mass hysteria and innocent people who had nothing to do with the confrontation to be struck with gunfire — and for Marquisha Wiley to die on the floor.”

Video, witnesses

From surveillance video and witness reports, police pieced together the following series of events, beginning around 12:15 a.m., which are laid out in the charges against Brown:

Phillips was in the bar talking to two women when Hoffman approached. Hoffman appeared to be upset, and he directed one of the women to walk with him toward the end of the bar.

Phillips stopped talking to the other woman and walked toward the rest of his group.

Brown entered the bar. Hoffman re-entered the scene with another friend, Allen Walker. Brown and Walker spoke to each other while looking at Phillips.

Hoffman walked directly up to Phillips, who had his back against a wall. Phillips shot Hoffman in the stomach, then walked toward the door and saw Brown.

Phillips raised his gun and fired at Brown while moving toward the door. Brown fired back at Phillips. Police believe this is when Wiley was shot.

Wiley, a veterinary technician from South St. Paul, was struck in the back, the bullet penetrating her left lung and heart.

Phillips and Brown continued to shoot at one another until Brown, too injured to stand, fell over and Phillips exited the bar. Bar patrons jumped on Brown, punching him, taking his gun from him and holding it until police arrived.

Phillips limped out to a car, got in and then got out again, passing out on the pavement. Police found his gun in the car.

Brown told police that when he entered the bar, he saw a man, Phillips, who is a relative of the woman he is dating. Brown and Phillips were in a dispute due to allegations of domestic abuse between Brown and his girlfriend, according to investigators.

Brown told investigators that Phillips shot him first and that he returned fire.

Victim’s friend testifies

Ernest Whitmore was hanging out at Truck Park with a group of friends that included Kevaughn Wiley and his sister, Marquisha Wiley.

Whitmore said Wednesday from the witness stand that he and his girlfriend were walking back from getting drinks when the first of 18 shots rang out, muffled by loud music by the R&B group 112 playing in the background.

“It seemed like some people didn’t hear the first shot, they didn’t know what was going on,” Whitmore, 28, of St. Paul, said. “Once they heard the second one, the third, they started taking cover and everybody was shook, running.”

He said he took cover under a table “instantly,” but others did not. Even so, he said, “I could hear the bullets flying past me.”

A bullet struck his right arm, ricocheted into his shoulder and then in his back, where it became lodged.

“I thought I was going to die,” he said.

At the hospital, he learned Marquisha Wiley was dead.

“It was the worst night, and continues to be the worst night in my life,” he said. “One of my closest friends had passed and I had to find that out in the hospital. It changed my life. I still don’t know where it’s going from here.”

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