Police arrest man charged with daylight drive-by murder on Minneapolis sidewalk

Police have arrested the shooter charged in a daylight drive-by killing on a Minneapolis sidewalk more than a year ago.

Montrell Earl Scott, 26, of St. Louis Park, was arrested last week in Richfield on two counts of second-degree murder in connection with the shooting on Nov. 15, 2023, of Laterryon O’mar Moore, 22, of Minneapolis.

Scott remains jailed in lieu of $1 million bail ahead of a March 4 court appearance. A message was left with his attorney seeking a response to the allegations.

Court records show that Scott’s criminal history includes a conviction for the armed robbery of a restaurant in New Hope on Christmas Eve 2018 that led to a sentence just shy of 3½ years.

According to last week’s charges, which were filed in late December and unsealed upon Scott’s arrest:

Officers dispatched to the intersection of Glenwood and Newton avenues N. arrived shortly after 3 p.m. to find Moore on the sidewalk in front of a market. He was dead from a gunshot wound to the head, likely from automatic gunfire.

Surveillance video showed Scott opening fire while passing by in a car driven by a woman.

Before the shooting, the car circled the area near the market where Moore had been standing. About 3½ minutes before the gunfire, surveillance video picked up a man saying, “‘It’s the opps!‘” as the car passed by. “Opp,” short for “opponent,” is slang for an enemy or rival.

A few months later, police find the car abandoned near the site of the shooting. They found DNA inside that was a match to Scott, based on the Minnesota convicted offender database.

Federal gun purchase records point to the woman driving the car as a straw buyer of guns for Scott, whose felony conviction bars him from buying firearms.