A long prison term awaits a man who admitted taking part in a rolling gun battle on a downtown Minneapolis street that led to one of the two vehicles hitting and killing a young woman standing at a corner with her scooter.
Christopher L. Walker, 35, of Fridley pleaded guilty this week in Hennepin County District Court to third-degree murder and second-degree attempted murder in the death of Autumn Rose Merrick, 18, of Minneapolis con Oct. 6, 2021, in the North Loop. Merrick was killed after leaving work.
The plea agreement calls for Walker to receive a term ranging from 21¾ to 24¼ years, with two-thirds of the time spent in prison and the balance on supervised release. He is scheduled to be sentenced March 18 by Judge Juan Hoyos.
Co-defendant Marvel G. Williams, 35, of St. Paul was sentenced in March to a term of 24¼ years after pleading guilty to second-degree murder and a gun possession count.
According to the charges:
Police responded to gunfire shortly after 11 p.m. near N. 5th Street and 6th Avenue, where officers soon saw a black Range Rover speeding into the intersection and then heard a crash. The Range Rover had hit a light pole and caught fire. The other vehicle, a silver Dodge Durango, had rammed into a building.
Walker, Williams and another person in the Range Rover were seriously hurt.
A friend with Merrick said the two were riding scooters to the Holiday gas station at that intersection and waiting on the corner when the Durango sped toward them. The friend said Merrick was struck, pushed into a building and trapped beneath the vehicle. Officers saw two bullet holes in the Durango.
Video surveillance from a nearby business appeared to show the Range Rover chasing the Durango just before they crashed.
Also this week, the driver of the Durango, Larvell Elmore, 37, of St. Peter, Minn., was sentenced to a five-year term after pleading guilty to illegally possessing a gun while being a felon.
When Elmore entered his plea in writing in October, he said, "[I] was driving down the street and someone started shooting [at] me. [I] tried to get away, crashed my car and was hospitalized. The police searched my car and found an inoperable firearm."
