Jumoke Johnson
Jumoke Johnson, 23, and Christopher Woodard, 20, were shot and killed in the 2100 block of E. 12th Street on Friday night.
The vehicle in which the shooting victims were riding crashed, landing on another car near Willow Street.
The people in the car that wrecked were dead when officers arrived.
Police said the incident happened around 8:15 p.m.
Police are looking for suspects in the double murder, but one has not yet been identified, it was stated.
Johnson has been in the news frequently, including when he was sentenced in federal court in January 2014.
At the time he was called the most dangerous person ever to be sentenced there.
A federal agent testified that Johnson, who was then 20, had threatened witnesses against him. The agent also said Johnson had two people at the workhouse beat up another man he believed was working against him.
He also said a witness told him he had seen Johnson shoot someone in the head.
After hearing the testimony, Federal Magistrate Bill Carter kept Johnson in jail pending handling of his federal charges for conspiracy to sell cocaine.
Johnson was in the news prior to that as a teen who had been the first in his family to graduate from Brainerd High School and who found a patron willing to pay for his college education. He dropped out of Miles College in Alabama after one semester and got back into a life of crime.
Johnson was known to be a validated gang member at the time he took part in graduation ceremonies at Brainerd High. He was given a shortened sentence in General Sessions Court in May 2012 after pleading guilty to assault with the agreement he would soon head off to college.
Johnson pleaded guilty to domestic assault involving an attack on the mother of his child and assault against a fellow jail inmate.
As part of an agreement, several cases against him in Criminal Court were also dismissed based on the General Sessions Court pleas. They included a drug case, another assault and a criminal trespass. In the drug case, a co-defendant took responsibility for the drugs. In the assault case, the alleged victim did not want to prosecute.
In General Sessions Court, Johnson was given a sentence of 11 months and 29 days in the workhouse. It was suspended after serving 180 days and upon enrollment in college. Prosecutor Brett Alexander at the time said he was advised that a donor had come forward and offered to sponsor him at the college.
The prosecutor said the charges against Johnson were serious. He said in the domestic assault case he grabbed the mother of his child while she was holding the baby and began choking her. He said he then took the child, and it was returned to the mother later that day by relatives.
He said the other case happened at the county jail when Johnson attacked a fellow inmate in a dispute over a TV remote.
The prosecutor said Johnson was a validated member of the Rollin' 60s Crip gang.
He said of the acclaim Johnson received for being the first member of his family in three generations to graduate from high school, "I would hope that others would receive as much recognition who have gone through high school without being gang leaders and getting numerous criminal charges."
Christopher Woodard