2nd gunman charged in ‘war zone’ shooting on Boom Island that left woman dead, others wounded

A second man has been charged in connection with the mass shooting during a birthday gathering at a popular city park on the Mississippi River left a woman dead and four men wounded.

Marquez Demar Hill-Turnipseed, 23, of Minneapolis, was charged Wednesday in Hennepin County District Court with two counts of second-degree murder and three counts of attempted second-degree murder stemming from the barrage of gunfire on June 1 gunfire at Boom Island Park.

Stageina Whiting, 23, of Brooklyn Center, died at HCMC from a gunshot wound to the torso. One of the people wounded remains in critical condition as of Wednesday and “fully paralyzed,” the charges read.

Soon after the shooting, Police Chief Brian O’Hara briefed the news media at the scene and said, “It’s more akin to a war zone with the amount of shell casings that the officers are recovering here.”

As of midday Wednesday, according to the charges, Hill-Turnipseed was in custody in Chicago County on charges out of Ramsey County involving a shooting. The charges in that case have yet to be made public.

Charged late last month in the Boom Island Park shootout was Zyere Jakye Porter, 23, of Spring Lake Park. He’s jailed on one count of second-degree murder, four of attempted second-degree murder and one of drive-by shooting.

Investigators determined that Porter, Hill-Turnipseed and a third person were asked to come to the park to help “fellow Low End gang members attack a known ‘opp,’ a term commonly used for opposing gang members,” the charges against Porter read.

According to charges against Hill-Turnipseed:

Officers raced to the scene about 9:30 p.m. and tallied roughly 130 discharged cartridge casings. They believe at least nine guns were fired during the mayhem.

Surveillance video showed Porter arriving at a large birthday party in the park in a Dodge Challenger. The party moved there after authorities kicked the attendees out of French Park in Plymouth.

A man got out of the Challenger, was chased down and shot. He went to the hospital in a different vehicle. The complaint did not disclose who shot the man.

The video captured the Challenger leaving the park after the shooting but soon returning. A passenger sat on the edge of an open window as the car circled the parking lot, “with the passenger shooting into the crowd multiple times,” the complaint read. Investigators later determined that Hill-Turnipseed was the shooter.

Whiting was in a vehicle being driven by her sister, who was attempting to leave the park as the first shots were fired.

“Just before they made it out of the park, the Challenger drove by and began shooting, and [Whiting] was hit ... near the exit to the park,” the complaint read.

On June 3, investigators tracked down the Challenger outside Porter’s home “and [it] was now green instead of black, and its license plate had been removed,” the charges noted.

Parked next to the Challenger was another vehicle positioned to block the Challenger from street view. Inside the other car were numerous guns and ammunition.

Investigators found inside the Challenger a live .40-caliber round and a .40-caliber shell casing. Testing confirmed the casing was fired from the same gun that fired near where Whiting was shot. Also, the bullet recovered from her body “was consistent with the .40-caliber class,” the charges continued.

Investigators went Tuesday to the Cook County jail in Chicago, where Hill-Turnipseed admitted to shooting at the vehicle with Whiting as a passenger, the charges read. He also said he emptied two ammunition clips while firing at several groups of people at the park. He added that he opened fire because he was angry that his friend with him and Porter in the Challenger had just been been shot.

Along with this case and the sealed charges in Ramsey County, Hill-Turnipseed’s criminal history also includes an illegal machine gun possession conviction in Hennepin County.

He also was convicted in federal court after he was swept up two summers ago with 13 other alleged Minneapolis gang members on gun and drug charges as part of push to bring down violence in the Twin Cities. Hill-Turnipseed received a two-year prison sentence in March 2024, but credit for his time in jail upon his arrest for the crime led to his release before the Boom Island Park shooting.

Police arrested Porter at his home on June 26. He remains jailed in lieu of $3 million bail ahead of a July 25 court hearing.

Court records in Minnesota show that he has convictions for illegal gun possession, fleeing police and auto theft.