WINONA, Minn. – Police swarmed the Kwik Trip off Highway 14 on the West End on a tip that a teen-age Minneapolis murder suspect had pulled in for gas. They pulled him from the car but he sprang loose. An officer grabbed the youth’s black jacket and stopped him. In the jacket, police said, was a loaded handgun. Mekhi Camden Speed, 17, of Minneapolis, was taken to the Winona jail and held on a warrant from Minneapolis. This was about 3:35 p.m. The arrest ended a manhunt that dated back to January. Killed then was Otis Elder, 38, a father of two. He was found shot lying shot in a Minneapolis street. A motive was not immediately ascertained. More recently—last Wednesday. – Speed was the object of a search warrant at a cousin’s place in St. Paul. Apparently Speed was not there when the SWAT team broke into the apartment. The cousin, however, was shot and killed. The killing of the cousin, Amir Locke, 22, has triggered massive protests in the Twin Cities. The killing raised the specter of the same social justice issues as the George Floyd police killing in Minneapolis in 2020. Locke was black, as is Speed. The SWAT officer who fired the fatal shots is white.
Multi-agencies
Involved in the arrest were Winona and Goodview police, the Southeast Minnesota Violent Crimes Enforcement Team, and the Winona County and Houston County sheriff’s offices. In the arrest, police said, Speed was not alone but a passenger in the car.