St. Paul man gets 5-year sentence after niece found his gun, shot 11-year-old boy
Damarjae Lott has fought hard ever since he was accidentally shot in the head by a 13-year-old girl who was playing with a gun in a St. Paul apartment in March.
The boy, who is now 12, spent 40 days in a coma and underwent multiple surgeries. He has a traumatic brain injury and also sustained a detached retina, which has caused him to lose his vision in his right eye.
'He has had to learn to walk, eat, read and even use the bathroom all over again,' the boy's parents said Wednesday in a Ramsey County Courtroom at the sentencing of Martinez Castillo Lloyd, who owned the gun and failed to secure it.
Lloyd, 35, received five years in prison, the mandatory minimum for a conviction of possession of a firearm by a person convicted of a crime of violence. Ramsey County District Judge DeAnne Hilgers also gave Lloyd a concurrent jail term just shy of one year for negligently leaving a loaded firearm in a place where a person knows a child is likely to gain access.
'While Mr. Lloyd did not pull the trigger, his recklessness undoubtedly put this whole violent offense into motion,' Damarjae's parents said in their statement that was read by Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Elizabeth Lamin.
Lloyd is the uncle of the 13-year-old girl and his son is Damarjae's friend.
Lloyd waived his right to a jury trial, electing to have Judge John Guthmann decide the verdict. In finding Lloyd guilty of the charges in July, Guthmann pointed out that Lloyd admitted to putting his loaded two guns in the location where they were found by the children. He concluded that Lloyd's statement to police, the police investigation and the girl's testimony 'conclusively establish that (Lloyd) failed to use reasonable care' in the storage of his loaded guns.
Lloyd is not eligible to possess firearms because he has a conviction for third-degree drug sale, stemming from a 2010 case, which state law defines as a crime of violence.
'Mr. Lloyd knew he was ineligible to possess a firearm,' Lamin told the court Wednesday. 'He chose to anyway. Not only is this a serious offense, but he also recklessly stored this firearm where children could access it. In this case, they did. And the worst thing imaginable happened.'
Officers arrived at Lloyd's Frogtown apartment building on a report of a shooting just before 9 p.m. March 29. It was a 'chaotic scene' with numerous juveniles, and Damarjae Lott lying at the top of the stairs inside the building, according to the criminal complaint.
Several juveniles said a girl picked up a firearm and said, 'I won't shoot him' before shooting the boy in the head and running away.
In the apartment, police found a loaded Smith & Wesson .357 revolver under a couch cushion and a spent bullet beneath a sofa. On the top shelf of a built-in dresser/shelving unit, which had unlocked doors, police located a loaded Springfield Hellcat 9mm semiautomatic pistol. No gun safe or any other form of locked cabinet was in the apartment.
Lloyd told police he lives at the apartment alone. Two of his children, who don't reside with him but visit frequently, and a group of five other children ranging from 10 to 13 years old arrived about 8:20 p.m.
Lloyd left about 8:50 p.m. to go to a store, the complaint says. His son and niece went into Lloyd's bedroom and retrieved firearms, with his son grabbing the 9mm and his niece the .357 revolver. They started waving the guns around.
The gun went off and Damarjae was shot. He fell down in the bedroom, and the other children carried him to the kitchen to give him some water and then tried walking him outside the apartment, which is where he collapsed and police found him.
In an interview with police, Lloyd said he kept the guns on the armoire's top shelf and that they were not secured or locked up, according to Judge Guthmann's written ruling. Lloyd admitted catching the children playing with his guns in the past. He said the guns are usually loaded, but that he takes out the bullets when the kids come over.
The girl testified at Lloyd's trial that she regularly visited her uncle's apartment to see her cousins. They played with the guns more than 10 times.
On two occasions, Lloyd caught the children with a firearm and told them to 'put it back and stop touching stuff,' the girl testified. He showed them how to put the Hellcat on safety and to 'treat every gun like it is loaded.'
'Even after twice finding children playing with the firearms, he did not remove them from his possession,' Judge Hilgers said Wednesday in handing down the sentence. 'He did not secure them, and he did not do anything to protect the children from them.'
Lloyd's attorney, assistant public defender Stephen Grigsby, asked Hilgers to depart from state sentencing guidelines and put him on probation. He said Lloyd has completed drug and alcohol treatment and is working and has had two 'relatively minor' misdemeanors since the 2010 drug case.
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'A lot of people that I represent are just simply not like them, because they do bad things to people all the time,' Grigsby said. 'That's not the case with him.'
Hilgers wasn't swayed, saying he is not 'particularly amenable' to probation. 'He has demonstrated he is a danger to the community, particularly to children. And his failure to take responsibility first, to not possess firearms, and second, to fail to secure them, does not permit any departure.'
Lloyd declined to address the court before receiving his sentence.
Aside from Damarjae's 'horrific' physical injuries, which will prevent him from playing football, his favorite sport, he has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, his parents said. 'He has changed, and isn't the same kid,' they said.
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