SWAT team arrests man on suspicion of murder in St. Paul shooting of 18-year-old

Mara H. Gottfried, Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.
·2 min read

Aug. 31—Police arrested a 37-year-old man on suspicion of murder in the shooting of a teenager on Sunday night in St. Paul.

SWAT officers took Dennis John Edmondson, of St. Paul, into custody in the backyard of a home in the 600 block of Cook Avenue in St. Paul shortly after 2:10 p.m. on Monday, police said Tuesday.

They transported him to St. Paul police headquarters and later booked him into the Ramsey County jail on suspicion of second-degree murder and on a warrant for third-degree criminal sexual conduct from a past conviction.

On Sunday at about 8:45 p.m., Lavonte Baymon-Love, 18, was driving when someone in another vehicle began shooting, according to police. Police received reports of shots fired from the area of Maria Avenue and East Seventh Street, and the vehicle came to a stop just west of Mounds Boulevard.

Baymon-Love was shot. Paramedics took him to the hospital, where he died soon after.

Police said Monday that the shooting appeared to stem from a dispute that happened earlier in the night at another location.

Baymon-Love, who just turned 18 on Aug. 25, "was a good kid who graduated from high school this year," his grandmother wrote on a GoFundMe for funeral expenses. "Despite his serious car accident in May 2020 he pushed for that accomplishment." She said their family had been "robbed of another (b)eautiful soul."

The Ramsey County attorney's office is reviewing a case against Edmondson.

Edmondson was charged in 2010 with raping a 13-year-old babysitter. During that investigation, a witness reported that Edmondson had a 16-year-old girlfriend who had a baby with him. Police determined she would have been 14 when she became pregnant, and prosecutors charged him with third-degree criminal sexual conduct.

Edmondson pleaded guilty in both cases. He was released from prison to supervised release in 2018, according to the Minnesota Department of Corrections. His sentence included lifetime supervision.

A warrant had been out for Edmondson since October; it was issued because he hadn't been following the terms of his supervised release, according to a Ramsey County Community Corrections representative.

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HOW TO HELP

The family's GoFundMe for Lavonte Baymon-Love's funeral expenses can be found at gofundme.com/f/lavontes-memorial.