A 26-year-old Chicago man has been charged in the alcohol-fueled shooting at Hilton Garden Inn in Oakdale on Saturday that left himself and another man wounded.
Tony J. Davidson was charged Tuesday in Washington County District Court with two counts of felony assault with a dangerous weapon and illegal possession of a firearm. He was released from jail the same day after posting $50,000 bail.
A 20-year-old Oakdale man injured in the early morning altercation was also arrested on suspicion of assault, but later released without charges. The Star Tribune generally does not name suspects who have not been charged.
According to the criminal complaint:
Oakdale police were called to the scene at 6:18 a.m., where they found one man suffering from a gunshot wound to the chest and another shot in his left forearm at the hotel on 420 N. Inwood Av. Neither was cooperative with authorities,
Both men were taken to Regions Hospital in St. Paul with noncritical injuries. A hospital security guard told police that the younger man identified Davidson as the shooter when he rolled past the 20-year-old's room in a stretcher.
In an interview with investigators, Davidson's girlfriend admitted to renting the room and inviting two friends to visit. The gathering snowballed when four men arrived for a party and started drinking. Jordana Berg-Obrecht, 22, told authorities that she felt uncomfortable when the 20-year-old guest began touching her and attempting to dance. Eventually, she told the men to leave because Davidson was coming over. But everyone stayed.
Berg-Obrecht met Davidson outside the hotel and the couple came back upstairs together, when she suddenly heard a loud bang. Davidson yelled about a pain in his arm and they fled into the elevator together.
He then handed her the gun and surveillance cameras caught her holding an object against her side, charges say. She admitted to dumping it outside the building moments later. Police recovered the loaded .45 caliber handgun beside a tree on the west side of the hotel.
Berg-Obrecht was charged Thursday with aiding and abetting and illegal possesion of a firearm, both felonies.
A male witness told detectives that Davidson had come into the room carrying a duffel bag. He threatened the witness and the 20-year-old Oakdale man with his gun and told them to leave, court records show. The witness reportedly grabbed the barrel of the gun and pushed it away as Davidson squeezed off a single round. Davidson was shot through the forearm while the other man was struck in the chest.
A 17-year-old witness surmised that the altercation began over the "theft of alcohol and cigarettes," according to a search warrant affidavit.
Crime scene technicians combing the hotel room found bloody towels, a "mushroomed" .45- caliber slug on the ground of the hallway and blood spatter on the walls.
Davidson has a previous felony conviction for theft. In that 2018 incident, he was found guilty of stealing more than $1,200 in clothing from a Macy's department store.
