[chris]

Mark Antonio Bell Jr., 35, was sentenced to 240 months (20 years) in prison on November 10, 2022, for the fatal shooting of his partner, Latifa Tasha Brown, 31, in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Bell was charged in Ramsey County with two counts of second-degree murder. He pleaded guilty in September 2022 to second-degree murder and was sentenced on one count, receiving credit for 293 days already served. Bell told the court he had acted in self-defense. Brown's family disputed that account, saying he could have walked away and left her alone. No appeal has been reported.

The couple had been together roughly ten to eleven years and had a one-year-old child. According to the charging complaint, they had lived for about a year in a duplex on Lyton Place in St. Paul's North End neighborhood. Bell told police their relationship became strained after Brown obtained a permit to carry a firearm. A sister of Brown later said Bell had abused her during the relationship; Bell denied being abusive.

Brown was shot shortly after midnight on Saturday, January 22, 2022, at 43 Lyton Place, near Lyton Place West and Sylvan Street. The complaint says Bell met her at Hoovers Pub, a few blocks away, to discuss relationship problems, with a friend of his also at the bar. Afterward, the friend tried to get Brown into the minivan. When she refused, he followed her in it, got out to talk and backed away when she pointed a gun at him. Neighbors heard a loud argument followed by a single gunshot.

Officers found Brown on the ground outside near the minivan, and paramedics pronounced her dead at the scene. The medical examiner determined she died of a gunshot wound to the mouth. Police detained Bell and the other man at the scene. The friend told investigators they had been trying to load Brown into the minivan to take her to the hospital. Officers reported that Bell smelled of alcohol and was slurring his speech.

According to the complaint, Bell told police he shot Brown during an argument that began over her gun permit. He said she had pulled a gun on him several times, including earlier that night, and he believed she would kill him. At the duplex, he said, she pointed her gun at him and he heard it click without firing. He said he took one of her other guns from the house and fired, believing he was aiming away from her. In the recording, the detective suggests to him that it was probably an accident.

The physical evidence did not fully fit Bell's account. One report said police found two guns, one inside the minivan and one on the ground near it, and no other guns in the duplex, although Bell said Brown kept three or four there. Another report said investigators recovered only one gun from the duplex. Bell was booked into the Ramsey County jail, held on $1 million bail and charged within days.

[chris]

Part 2 of 2 of the recording described above.