MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – The second gunman responsible for the death of a 5-year-old boy who was shot while sleeping on his grandmother’s couch has been sentenced to 28 years in prison.
Sixteen-year-old Julian Kijuan Lamar Anderson pleaded guilty Tuesday to second-degree intentional murder for the shooting on June 26, 2012, which killed Nizzel George. When he was asked how he pleaded to the murder charge, and he responded, “guilty,” a member of George’s family gasped and cried. Anderson was certified in October to be tried as an adult.
In exchange for his guilty plea, prosecutors dropped the two first-degree murder charges and another second-degree murder charge. He will spend 28 years in prison.
“Twenty-eight years may seem like a long time, but Mr. Anderson deserves every minute for brazenly shooting up a house and killing an innocent five-year-old boy as he slept,” said Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman. “Finally, we are getting some closure on this horrible crime.”
Nizzel George was asleep on his grandmother’s couch when Anderson and 17-year-old Stephon Shannon fired repeatedly into the north Minneapolis home, located on the 4500 block of Bryant Avenue North. A bullet came through the wall and hit Nizzel.
Shannon pleaded guilty in February to the June shooting. Shannon was indicted in Hennepin County Court in August on multiple murder charges.
George was two months away from his sixth birthday and about to enter first grade.
