A Michigan man who was extradited back to Winona to face charges of aggravated assault has been released, and the charges have been dismissed, not without prejudice.
Eddie Ellis went before Judge Alan D. Lancaster on Oct. 6 in Winona Municipal Court. Ellis was charged with two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon from an incident that happened on Jan. 29, when two people were shot on Silver Street.
Capt. Matt Milletello said the incident began with a fight at a restaurant on Highway 407 in January. He said it went from there to Silver Street. But, according to the victims, they had nothing to do with the fight. They knew nothing about the fight, and they were all together.
The victims Dekarian Crawford and Tedarious Burnett said they’d never seen Ellis, and they had no idea who shot them until a younger cousin, a minor who was also shot, told them that Ellis was the one that shot them.
Milletello testified that the witnesses identified Ellis as a light skin male with dreads and by Ellis’s voice. He said that he didn’t get a statement from Ellis and the motive and association between Ellis, and the victims are unknown.
He testified that there was a fight at the Mexican restaurant an hour before the shootings happened.
Crawford said that he and a group of people were outside of his home on Silver Street, and they’d been there all day. He said two vehicles, a white truck and a black car pulled up, and the woman was talking to him.
“I told her we can handle this like grown adults,” he said. Crawford said he heard a man that was wearing a mask, yell out “You better get in the house or we gone blow it up.” He said he and other started to run toward the home when shots were fired and he was hit.
Burnett said he had been there five minutes when he saw the cars pull up. He said he had never seen Ellis a day in his life, he didn’t know who shot him or why. He said that his friends didn’t tell him anything and he didn’t know much.
Tanaka Roberts said that she was at her home in the shower and she thought her son, Crawford, and friends were shooting firecrackers. She said that’s what the shots sounded like to her. Roberts said that her son came into the house and was bleeding.
She said she was more focused on her son but she did see two vehicles. Roberts said there was one – the long white truck which she identified as a Suburban that she said belonged to a woman who lives in Vaiden, who she identified as Latisha Lofton. Roberts said she was told the woman from Vaiden’s son was involved in the fight.
“I guess she went and rallied her troops and came back to Winona,” she said. Roberts said there’s someone else with her name and they went to the wrong Tanaka’s home.
“There’s another lady in Winona with my name. I think her name is Tanaka Ford or Forrest, I’m not sure what she goes by, but her son was the one that was in the fight at the Mexican restaurant not my son,” she said.
“So, do you think it was a case of mistaken identity?” Public Defender Payne Horan asked. Roberts said yes.
Acting prosecutor Jennifer Adams-Williams asked Crawford and Burnett how did the younger male know who shot them. Both of them told Adams-Williams they didn’t know.
“When I asked him, he told me ‘Don’t worry about it, just know that I know,’” Burnett said.
Lancaster asked Adams-Williams if she felt the city had met their burden of proof.
“It’s very unfortunate because people did get shot. But, I don’t think the city has met its burden of proof. No one will talk and we must operate in evidence. And, I don’t think the city has met its burden,” Adams-Williams said.
Lancaster agreed stating all the city had was that a crime had been committed.
“It’s on them now, it’s not on the city,” he said. Lancaster said but at this point, the city couldn’t move forward. He said he was dismissing it not without prejudice.
“That means that it can still come back up, if the city investigates and finds further evidence,” Lancaster said.
