South St. Paul teen fatally shot in Minneapolis picked ‘wrong crowd to hang out with,’ mother says

Nick Ferraro, Pioneer Press
·3 min read

A 15-year-old South St. Paul girl who died shortly after reported gunfire in North Minneapolis last weekend was remembered Wednesday as a free spirit and a social butterfly who made friends easily.

Marleisha Davenport was a “beautiful girl in every way you can imagine,” said her mother, who is also named Marleisha Davenport. “And she picked the wrong crowd to hang out with. She loved the dangerous crowd.”

Authorities have released few details about the teen’s killing, saying she was shot once in the back and dropped off at North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale just before 10 p.m. Saturday. She was pronounced dead about 45 minutes later.

“I’ve gone from being hurt to being angry, because nobody has any answers,” the teen’s mother said. “It’s not fair.”

Minneapolis police spokesman Brian Feintech said Wednesday that homicide investigators are still trying to determine where the shooting happened and circumstances leading up to it. He said he could not confirm media reports that Davenport’s killing was related to a number of gunshots on the North Side reported just before she was dropped off at the hospital.

“I don’t know that they have anything,” Feintech said of homicide investigators, adding there have been no arrests in the case.

‘A really strong mind’

Davenport was one of eight siblings. For most of her life, she lived with her aunt, Alena Hobbs, in West St. Paul and South St. Paul. She had been enrolled as a freshman at Two Rivers High School in Mendota Heights, according to a GoFundMe page set up Tuesday.

“Marleisha was loved from every direction and enchanted every person she met,” the online fundraising page says. “She was extremely intelligent and had a personality larger than life.”

Her mother said she loved to dance, she loved to sing. She said the teen could be “hard to get through to and and had a really strong mind. That was a strong asset, and it was something that could cripple her, too, at the same time.”

She said she and the teen’s father, both of whom live in Brooklyn Center, had learned she’d been hanging out with boys in North Minneapolis, where “she ran when things got tough at home.”

“Everybody tried to tell her that these guys are no good,” she said. “But she wouldn’t listen. She always had to have things her way.”

Told father about previous shooting

Her father, Steve Davenport, said Wednesday she told him about a month ago how she knew of a 15-year-old who was shot on the North Side, then dropped at North Memorial Medical Center.

“When she said that to me, I said, ‘You gotta be kidding me? You are telling me this, and you don’t feel this is an issue or a problem? This is not fun and games, this is real life,’ ” he said. “I told her she has to go home and cannot be on the street like this.”

He said his daughter reassured him that she was “going to do this, do this and this, but she went right down the same rabbit hole. It’s just unbelievable that this actually really happened. I kept saying to her that she was going to end up getting locked up or getting killed. I said it several times, but obviously didn’t want it to happen or expect it to happen. But it did.”

Investigators are asking the public for information regarding the killing. Anyone with information is encouraged to call CrimeStoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477). Tips may also be submitted electronically at www.CrimeStoppersMN.org. All tips are anonymous and anyone providing information leading to an arrest and conviction may be eligible for a financial reward.

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