Man convicted of felony after leaving 7 kids alone in St. Paul home where girl shot 11-year-old boy

A 34-year-old man has been convicted of a felony after leaving seven children alone in a St. Paul apartment, where his 13-year-old niece found a gun and shot and critically wounded an 11-year-old boy.

Martinez Castillo Lloyd was found guilty in a bench trial in Ramsey County District Court in connection with the wounding on March 29 of Damarjae Lott in an apartment in the 800 block of Pierce Butler Route.

Presiding Judge John Guthmann will sentence Lloyd on Nov. 6 on two counts: possessing a gun despite being a felon and a gross misdemeanor count of failing to store a gun out of the reach of a child. Lloyd’s felony drug conviction in 2010 made him ineligible to possess a gun.

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, Police Chief Axel Henry said in a statement, “If you’re not supposed to have guns, don’t have guns. If you have guns, you have a duty and a responsibility to keep them safe and away from those who shouldn’t have them.”

According to the charges and the judge’s verdict filing:

Officers arrived at the apartment shortly before 9 p.m. and found Damarjae on the floor at the top of the stairs with a gunshot wound to the back of his head. Medics took him to a hospital for surgery.

Several children in the apartment said the girl was playing with a gun while visiting her cousins, then shot Damarjae and fled to her home on Charles Avenue.

“I accidentally shot somebody,” the complaint quoted her as telling the officers as they took her into custody that night. “I didn’t know the gun was loaded.”

Lloyd is the father of two of the children who live somewhere else, and they were visiting him. His two children and five others with them, ranging from ages 10 to 13, arrived about 8:20 p.m. Lloyd left for the store with a friend about 8:50 p.m. and came back minutes after the shooting.

While Lloyd was gone, his son and his niece went into Lloyd’s bedroom. They each retrieved a handgun and started waving it around. The two told police they have played with the guns “a dozen times” in the past year when Lloyd is not around, and “the firearms are generally unloaded.”

The niece said she last played with one of the guns the previous weekend, and she assumed the guns were unloaded as usual. As she was waving and playing with the gun, a shot was fired that hit Damarjae.

After his arrest, Lloyd said he keeps the guns high up in a cabinet and usually stored them unloaded. He acknowledged that his children and his niece have seen him handle the guns previously.

There was no gun safe or “other form of locked cabinet” in the cabinet for storing firearms.