Second defendant gets 24 years for murder caught on dashcam

Shannon Blackman was sentenced to more than 24 years in prison for the shooting of a teenager, which was caught on the dashboard camera of a private vehicle, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office announced Tuesday.

Blackman, 24, of Minneapolis, pleaded guilty last week to aiding and abetting second-degree murder and aiding and abetting second-degree assault in the death last year of 16-year-old Quayshun Felton. The assault charge was for shooting at Felton’s friend who was standing nearby at the time of the murder. Blackman was sentenced Monday afternoon to 290 months in prison for the murder charge and 57 months on the assault charge, which will run concurrently.

Both in his plea appearance last week and his sentencing Monday, Blackman said the minimum necessary about the crimes. No motive has been revealed.

According to the criminal complaint and what Blackman admitted in court last week, he and co-defendant Andre Owens, on the afternoon of July 19, 2019, saw Felton and his friend in a yard near Colfax and 30th Avenues North. The two men were on their bicycles and rode up near the two victims before firing multiple shots, killing Felton but missing his friend.

Witnesses identified the two young men as the shooter and a dashboard camera in a delivery vehicle parked just down the street recorded the shooting and verified the witness accounts.

Owens, 21, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in February and was sentenced to 372 months in prison.