Suspect in 2021 West St. Paul shooting arrested at airport, charged with murder

A suspect in a fatal 2021 shooting in West St. Paul was arrested Thursday night at the airport and is now facing murder charges.

According to West St. Paul police, officers found 24-year-old Brenden Jamel Reynolds in a vehicle at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport at around 8 p.m. Thursday.

RELATED: Man dead after West St. Paul shooting

Airport police and the Dakota County Task Force worked to stop the vehicle he was in and then took Reynolds into custody.

He’s now charged with second-degree murder in the killing of Jayvon Andrew Malone, who was fatally shot at Thompson County Park on June 9, 2021.

Two people were arrested in the days after the shooting but authorities have been looking for the person who pulled the trigger ever since it happened.

Police were called to the park at around 9 p.m. that night on a reported shooting. There, officers found Malone lying in the grass and suffering from two apparent gunshot wounds. Two people were putting pressure on his wounds and Malone told officers he was going to die, court documents state.

Officers asked Malone who shot him but he never responded. He was then pronounced dead at a hospital.

According to charging documents, surveillance video from the park showed a confrontation underneath the pavilion at the park. A witness told police there had been a party for a cousin’s graduation there earlier that day but later said the party was actually for a person incarcerated at a county jail, with the goal of the party being to raise money to pay for his legal fees.

Another witness told police there wasn’t any tension at the party until Reynolds arrived.

Other video showed Reynolds pull up on a motorcycle, then walk over to Malone and tell him, “You got my brother killed,” a criminal complaint states. He then allegedly punched Malone in the face, sending him to the ground and gunshots were then fired.

As Malone ran toward a car, he fell to the ground and appeared to fire gunshots back at Reynolds.

Court documents state that Malone was involved in a crime with others back in September of 2018 and someone known as “G-Will” died. Malone went to prison for the offense, which isn’t specified in the document. However, investigators noted that G-Will’s family apparently blamed Malone for his death, and that seemed to be what Reynolds was referring to in his comment to Malone before the shooting.

Reynolds made his first court appearance Friday afternoon and had his bail set at $2 million without conditions or $1.5 million with conditions. His next appearance is scheduled for April 6.