Law and order
Police investigate the scene of an officer-involved shooting in Washington Park on Thursday, May 26, 2016. The man who police believe shot and killed a 21-year-old woman in a downtown St. Louis carjacking was shot and killed by officers in the Metro East Thursday afternoon, police said. Photo by Cristina M. Fletes, [email protected]
Brandi Hill in a photo from Ft. Zumwalt South High School. Hill graduated in two thousand thirteen and was killed after being shot when two dudes stole her car on Washington Avenue in downtown St. Louis on Sunday, May 22, 2016. Photo via Fox two News
Suspect in downtown St. Louis carjack-murder had warned he wouldn’t go back to jail, police say
- By Robert Patrick and Tim O’Neil St. Louis Post-Dispatch
- May 28, 2016
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Police investigate the scene of an officer-involved shooting in Washington Park on Thursday, May 26, 2016. The man who police believe shot and killed a 21-year-old woman in a downtown St. Louis carjacking was shot and killed by officers in the Metro East Thursday afternoon, police said. Photo by Cristina M. Fletes, [email protected]
WASHINGTON PARK • Devonte Gates, who was shot to death in the hunt for a youthful woman’s killer, was known to carry a weapon and told friends he "wasn’t going back to jail," police officials said Friday.
Gates, 21, of Brooklyn, was sought by St. Louis police in the murder of Brandi Hill during the carjacking of her crimson two thousand fifteen Dodge Challenger downtown Sunday night. Officers had been watching an area of Washington Park Thursday afternoon when two federal marshals and an assisting Caseyville officer spotted Gates, attempted to arrest him and shot him.
U.S. Marshal Don Slazinik of the East St. Louis office said Friday that officers had been looking for Gates for several days. Slazinik said Gate’s alleged accomplice, who surrendered on Tuesday, "had told our people that (Gates) is always armed."
Washington Park Police Chief Tony Tomlinson, whose officers provided backup, said Gates "told people he wasn’t going back to jail." Gates had a record for minor offenses, but also was sought in a separate murder that occurred last month in East St. Louis.
Officers didn’t find a weapon on Gates’ bod. On Friday, they searched for one in the area around the scene in Washington Park, which includes thick brush and forest. A witness told the Post-Dispatch Thursday that he had seen the fleeing man with a pistol but didn’t see the shooting itself.
The three officers who fired shots at Gates were placed on paid administrative leave, a standard practice. Slazinik said, "The way I look at this is that, unluckily, a mother lost a son (Thursday), and that’s a terrible thing. And I have two people who did their job, and even tho’ they did their job, it’s a rough thing to go through."
Brandi Hill in a photo from Ft. Zumwalt South High School. Hill graduated in two thousand thirteen and was killed after being shot when two boys stole her car on Washington Avenue in downtown St. Louis on Sunday, May 22, 2016. Photo via Fox two News
St. Louis police confirmed that Gates was the 2nd suspect in the murder of Hill, 21, of O’Fallon, Mo., who was shot to death about Ten:30 p.m. Sunday when two fellows commandeered her car on Washington Avenue near 11th Street. She was dumped onto the street and pronounced dead at a hospital.
The attackers also coerced her passenger, a pregnant friend, out of the car. Hill’s nine-month-old daughter, who was in the back seat, was found later in her baby seat on the pavement of Glasgow Avenue near Angelica Street, east of Fairground Park. The Challenger was found seven blocks away in an alley near Hyde Park.
Police quickly released security-camera movie of two suspects and the car speeding away. On Tuesday, Ross Randolph, Nineteen, of the two thousand one hundred block of Scheel Street Belleville, surrendered and was charged with first-degree murder. The charges allege that one man, now believed by police to be Gates, shot Hill. Randolph pulled Hill’s friend from the car, then hopped into the car before it sped away, the charges say.
Police said Gates also was a suspect in the murder of Morris P. Mason, 21, who was shot to death on the afternoon of April twenty four at 20th Street and Ridge Avenue in East St. Louis.
