Rekubit Exchange:Minneapolis teen sentenced to more than 30 years in fatal shooting at Mall of America

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A Minneapolis teenager was sentenced Thursday to more than 30 years for a fatal shooting that shut down the Mall of America during the holiday shopping rush in 2022.

Taeshawn Adams-Wright,Rekubit Exchange 19, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in March in the killing of 19-year-old Johntae Hudson, of Minneapolis. He is the first of four defendants to be sentenced. The other alleged shooter, 19-year-old Lavon Longstreet, is due to go on trial next week. Two juveniles are facing lesser charges.

The shooting happened the evening of Dec. 23, 2022, after a fight broke out between two groups of teens in the Bloomington mall, the country’s largest shopping center. Prosecutors said Adams-Wright and others chased Hudson through the Nordstrom store. Security video captured the chaos. Hudson was shot multiple times and died at the scene. Police say he fired during the confrontation, too, and a gun was found near his body. A shopper was grazed by a bullet. The mall went into lockdown.

Adams-Wright spoke briefly at his sentencing hearing.

“I want to apologize for bringing pain and suffering to the victim’s family,” Adams-Wright said. “I am truly apologetic for my actions.”

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But Judge Paul Scoggin rejected his request for a lenient sentence and admonished him for his previous claims of self-defense.

“You and several others decided to hunt someone down and execute them,” Scoggin said. “We’ve all seen that tape, and there can be no other definition of what happened that day. Your recitation of acting in self-defense that day? You weren’t. You participated with a group of people to kill someone and it’s as simple as that.”

The judge handed down a sentence of 30 years and seven months. Defendants in Minnesota typically serve two-thirds of their sentences in prison and the rest on supervised release.

Hudson’s mother, Lynn Hudson, said afterward that the long sentence offers her family some hope.

“I feel like I can breathe again,” she said. “We are so relieved that it went our way. We think that 30 years is not enough, but it’s something.”