Minneapolis man pleads guilty in fatal shooting, sentenced to 20 years

A Minneapolis man pleaded guilty to fatally shooting 21-year-old Ahmed Jirde, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman announced Friday.

Maurice Tyrone Forest, 38, pleaded guilty this morning to second-degree, intentional murder. He will be sentenced January 4 to 240 months in prison.

According to the criminal complaint, on the evening of October 15, 2017, Jirde was found slumped over in the front passenger seat of a parked car near 11th Avenue South and Franklin Avenue East. He was bleeding from an apparent gunshot wound to the head and was pronounced dead at the scene. Police also saw two bullet holes in the front passenger door and a third hole in the bottom corner of the windshield nearest the front passenger seat.

A witness told police that another man drove him and Jirde to the area of the shooting. He parked the car and said he would return. The witness and Jirde stayed in the car. About a minute later, the witness heard a series of gunshots. When the shooting stopped, he realized that Jirde had been shot and the witness called 911, according to the complaint.

The driver of the car explained to police that when he left the car, he was looking to purchase crack cocaine from Forest. While the driver was walking toward a nearby building, he heard three or four gunshots. Surveillance video recovered from a nearby business showed Forest walk to an area of a parking lot where police later recovered four discharged cartridge casings. The video also captured the sound of four gunshots. In court, Forest admitted that he intentionally fired into the occupied vehicle.

Forest Criminal complaint (PDF)