Mark Bell Charged With Fatally Shooting Girlfriend In St. Paul
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- A St. Paul man is facing murder charges for allegedly shooting his longtime girlfriend over the weekend.
Mark Antonio Bell Jr., 35, is charged with second-degree murder in the early Saturday morning shooting of 31-year-old Latifa Brown, court documents filed in Ramsey County show. If convicted of the murder charge, Bell faces up to 40 years in prison.
According to a criminal complaint, the shooting happened shortly after midnight at a duplex on 43 Lyton Place in St. Paul's North End neighborhood. Responding officers found Brown covered in blood and lying on the ground outside near a minivan. Paramedics pronounced her dead at the scene. Later, a medical examiner determined her cause of death was a gunshot wound to the mouth.
Neighbors reported to investigators that they heard a noisy argument before a single gunshot was fired in the duplex. At the scene, police detained Bell and another man. The other man told investigators that he and Bell were trying to get Brown into the minivan to take her to the hospital.
In an interview with police, Bell said that he shot Brown, his girlfriend of 10 years with whom he has a young child, in the midst of an argument about her permit to carry a gun. According to the complaint, he told police that she pulled a gun on him several times and he thought she was going to kill.
While she was pointing a gun at him, he took one of her other firearms and shot her. However, investigators say they only recovered one gun from the duplex.
Local Domestic Violence Resources
Women's Advocates
www.wadvocates.org
Crisis Line: (651) 227-8284
Saint Paul & Ramsey County Domestic Abuse Intervention Project
https://www.stpaulintervention.org
Crisis Line: (651) 645-2824
Minnesota Day One
www.dayoneservices.org
Crisis Line: 1-866-223-1111
Esperanza United
esperanzaunited.org
Bilingual crisis line: (651) 772-1611.
For anonymous, confidential help, people can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or 1-800-787-3224.
