Gunman convicted in killing, shootout
Surveillance video at an East 5th Avenue carry-out captured the chilling images as Deanthoni Truss entered the store, shot one man in the chest and turned the gun on two people fighting on the floor before running to a waiting car in the parking lot.
Five months later, Truss fired 28 shots during a shootout with law enforcement officers when they tracked him to a Far North Side hotel.
On Monday, a Franklin County jury rejected claims that Truss, 23, was defending himself when he killed one man and paralyzed another in the store and that he didn’t realize that lawenforcement officers were at the door when he started shooting from his hotel room.
The jurors convicted Truss of aggravated murder, two counts of attempted murder, five counts of felonious assault and multiple gun specifications.
He faces a maximum of life without parole for the aggravated murder and as many as 66 years for the other counts when he is sentenced Jan. 10 by Common Pleas Judge Laurel Beatty Blunt.
He killed Tommie Brown in the shooting at the Quick Stop Convenience Store in the 2700 block of East 5th Avenue at about noon on June 8, 2016. He also shot Kris Pace and William Brown Jr., who were on the floor in the midst of a fight. Pace was left a quadriplegic and Brown, not related to Tommie, was shot in the shoulder.
Assistant Prosecutor James Lowe told jurors that Truss’ motive was unclear, but “clearly, there’s some history between these people.”
Truss, of the South Side, told homicide detectives that he shot Tommie Brown because he was pulling a gun on him. A handgun was found beside Brown’s body. Defense attorney Frederick Benton suggested that Truss was defending himself against Tommie Brown and shot Pace to protect his friend William Brown, who was on the losing end of an assault.
The shootout occurred on Nov. 17, 2016, when the U.S. Marshal Service led a contingent of lawenforcement officers to the door of Truss’s room on the second floor of the Sheraton Suite hotel on Hutchinson Avenue.
Evidence showed that Truss fired on them with two guns, and three officers responding by firing a combined 22 rounds. No one was injured, and Truss eventually was taken into custody with the help of a stun gun.