Charged as ‘lookout’ in infamous Miami-Dade mass shooting, man faces three murder counts
The lone person charged in an infamous mass shooting outside a Northwest Miami-Dade banquet hall that left three people dead and 20 others injured faced a jury for the first time on Thursday.
Defense attorneys and prosecutors agree on one key fact: Davonte Barnes, 24, did not pull the trigger on a crowd standing outside the El Mula club. two years ago But prosecutors accused him of serving as a sentry and scout for a trio of armed gang members.
Their case is based in part on his own words to police investigators —an alleged “confession” his attorney argued had been coerced by police to pin the brazen crime on somebody.
“The defendant agreed to act as the lookout. He agreed to act as the eyes to the operation. He got there early and he waited. And he watched,” Miami-Dade Assistant State Attorney Kioceaia Stenson told the 12 jurors.
Barnes’ attorney Robert Barrar didn’t deny his client was there that day but he took issue with the eight hours detective spent questioning him — the first two hours of which, he said, were not recorded.
“They force-fed information during that time,” said Barrar. “He fought what they wanted him to say for a long time.”
Though he did not fire any gun, Barnes is still facing three counts of first-degree murder with a deadly weapon and 20 counts of attempted murder. If convicted he could be imprisoned for life.
State prosecutors say that late on the night of May 30, 2021, while dozens of people were inside the El Mula banquet hall at 7630 NW 186th St. listening to the release of an album by a rapper named ABMG Spitta, Barnes and a group of friends surrounded the parking lot with high-powered weaponry, waiting in ambush of rival gang members.
When the crowd left the music hall, at least three men wearing all white opened fire on the crowd for about 10 seconds with semi-automatic rifles. Then they jumped back into a white Nissan Pathfinder and took off. That scene was captured on surveillance video. Police said the shooting was retaliation in a beef between Northwest MiamiDade gangs.
The spray of gunfire killed Desmond Owens and Clayton Dillard III, both 26, and an innocent bystander named Shankquia Lechelle Peterson, 32, who was taken to the hospital and later died of her wounds. Nearly two dozen others were wounded or hurt.
State prosecutors believe the shooting stemmed from a beef between gang members at two Opa-locka area apartment complexes known as the “Back Blues” and “The Bricks.” The shooting was also one of several high-profile shootings before the summer of 2021 that led local police to crackdown on feuding gangs.
Barnes took part in court testimony last summer in which a group of other suspects who police believe to be affiliated with the Bricks were named. Some included “Savage,” “Gordo” and “O.G. Drop.” Another associate mentioned was 19-year-old Antwon Streeter, who was shot to death in Opa-locka one week before the El Mula shooting. MiamiDade Detective Alexandra Turnes, the lead investigator in the case, said during the hearing that his death led to the shooting at El Mula.
She also testified that Owens, who was killed, was one of the intended targets. Stenson, the prosecutor, told jurors that the primary target was a man named Antonio “FoePack” Jones. He was wounded in the shooting.
Detectives say Barnes — who they said confessed during the hearing last summer — told homicide detectives that his crew had driven to El Mula to find Jones. Barnes also told detectives that prior to the shooting, he put El Mula’s address into his phone’s GPS and the GPS systems in four other cars that drove there.
He said he knew there was going to be “some type of retaliation.”
Police actually arrested one of the suspected shooters five months after the Memorial Day incident. But he was freed and the charges were dropped after state prosecutors determined that Warneric Anthony Buckner had invoked his right to counsel before admitting to his crimes on tape. He told police he was in the front passenger seat of the Pathfinder “armed with a large firearm.”
In June, while serving a 30 month prison sentence on a separate charge, Buckner, 22, was charged with the January 2021 murder of 6-year-old Chassidy Saunders, known affectionately as the TikTok Princess for her love of making dance videos. She was killed leaving a birthday party in Northwest Miami-Dade with her family.