A Strangely Close Connection Between JNS Blog And Homicide Victim Demetrius Harper, Plus The Rap Sheet For His Baby Mama, London Rozelle...

Photo from Facebook page of Demetrius Harper (Meady
Neverenough Harper) used under First Amendment Fair
Comment and Criticism, blog post by John Hoff

It's a small hood after all.

Though I've written a couple of articles about the two men killed at an illegal "after hours" Northside club, click here and here, it turns out I have a personal connection with homicide victim Demetrius (Meady) Harper and didn't even realize it...

Some time last year, one of the roommates at my house woke up the other roommate in the middle of the night.

"Come outside," said the first roommate. "You're not going to believe what happened."

Totaled, Like, TOTALLY 

A vehicle, driven by somebody who was likely high or intoxicated, had hit two vehicles parked directly in front of my house. One belonged to my roommate. The other belonged to my OTHER roommate. One was a beater but it ran well enough, the other was practically new. Both vehicles were totaled.

Typical of my inexplicable luck--the kind of thing that saved me from a massive truck bomb at Forward Operating Base Gardez where I pulled endless guard duty near the front gate--I was somewhere else when random tragedy struck. My vehicle was unaffected. Every time one of my vehicles gets totaled, I get a fat check. This has happened, like, twice.

Anyway! A neighbor got in his vehicle and chased the suspect who had done the damage. The neighbor made a positive identification of the suspect as Demetrius Harper. But another neighbor came forward later as a witness. Oh, she too had seen what happened, so she said. And it wasn't Demetrius who wrecked the vehicles. She knew Demetrius, and it wasn't him. The whole accusation was a mistake and no doubt based upon some kind of RACISM.

Prosecutors declined to prosecute the case because, well, how would the jury sort out the issue of suspect identification? Ironically, if Demetrius had been prosecuted for the crime and gone to jail for a stretch, he'd probably be alive right now.

Baby Mama Drama 

The vehicle in question was not registered to Demetrius but some other woman who was believed to be his girlfriend. I will get the name later; but it was NOT London Rozelle, the woman who identified herself to the Star Tribune as the mother of one child by Harper with another on the way.

QUESTION: Does the Department of Social Security require a blood test before paying out benefits to the alleged orphan child of a dead street thug?

I just thought I'd take a moment to ask that question out loud, because it seems like so many times when a thug dies some woman comes forward and says THAT WAS THE FATHER OF MY BABY! One thinks of Haywood Eaton as an example. 

ANYWAY! One of my roommates is a private detective, a fact that comes in pretty handy when, for example, I'm trying to figure out where Jerry Moore lives and works so I can pursue him to the gates of hell, if necessary, to collect on the judgment he owes me. So constant and concerted efforts were made to locate an insurer for the vehicle in question and pursue a civil case not only against Demetrius Harper but the bar that (so my roommate believed) had "over served" him alcohol.

Death, Well, That's A New Legal Twist 

These efforts to shake money out of Demetrius Harper and/or an insurance company or even some bar had not entirely ceased but were moving forward at a maddeningly slow pace. Harper's friends probably knew right where he was (so did at least one enemy, it would appear) but my roommate found Harper impossible to track down. I'd heard the name "Demetrius Harper" in association with the incident but it didn't stick in my mind. Then a few days ago my roommate called my cell phone, excitedly.

"DEMETRIUS HARPER!" he said, excitedly. "You wrote about him!"

"Yes," I said. "So...?"

"THAT'S THE SON-OF-A-BITCH WHO WRECKED ME AND (OTHER ROOMMATE'S) VEHICLES!"

Oh, I replied. Oh, hell.

And then my mind started to coldly calculate. Would Demetrius Harper's death make civil suit efforts more or less effective? Could his ESTATE be sued?

Thugs Of A Feather Flock Together

Who London Rozelle chooses to date and bear illegitimate children by is her business, mostly, and I probably wouldn't have anything to say about her at all about her if...

Well, if she didn't have a criminal record of her own. I find it interesting and relevant that she does. And so here it is.

(Keep in mind not all of these charges may have resulted in actual convictions. If I was using a faster internet signal right now I'd probably try to show the result of each charge, but given the speed of the server I'm using at the moment, well, to heck with it)

27-CR-08-11599 ROZELLE, LONDON YVONNE 03/13/1988 03/07/2008 Hennepin Criminal/Traffic/Petty Downtown Crim/Traf Mandatory Closed TRAFFIC-DRIVERS LICENSE-DRIVING AFTER SUSPENSION DRUGS - POSSESS OVER 1.4 GRAMS MARIJUANA IN MOTOR VEHICLE

27-CR-09-43937 ROZELLE, LONDON YVONNE 03/13/1988 09/01/2009 Hennepin Criminal/Traffic/Petty Brookdale Crim/Traf Mandatory Closed Disorderly Conduct

27-CR-10-15979 ROZELL, LATRIECE ANTOINETE 12/19/1986 04/09/2010 Hennepin Criminal/Traffic/Petty Ridgedale Reilly, Denise D. Crim/Traf Mandatory Closed THEFT-TAKE/USE/TRANSFER MOVABLE PROP-NO CONSENT

27-CR-10-16043 ROZELLE, LONDON YVONNE 03/13/1988 04/09/2010 Hennepin Criminal/Traffic/Petty Ridgedale Reilly, Denise D. Crim/Traf Mandatory Closed THEFT-TAKE/USE/TRANSFER MOVABLE PROP-NO CONSENT

27-CR-11-16948 ROZELLE, LONDON YVONNE 03/13/1988 05/25/2011 Hennepin Criminal/Traffic/Petty Ridgedale Abrams, Ronald L. Crim/Traf Mandatory Under Court Jurisdiction Theft-Take/Use/Transfer Movable Prop-No Consent Traffic-Drivers License-Driving After Suspension Traffic Regulation-Uninsured Vehicle-Owner Violation

ROZELLE, LONDON YVONNE 03/13/1988 07/21/2011 Hennepin Criminal/Traffic/Petty Ridgedale Abrams, Ronald L. Crim/Traf Mandatory Under Court Jurisdiction Traffic-Drivers License-Driving After Suspension

(She still owes $128 on the last charge. I managed to pull up THAT much, slow interent or not)

My MNCIS search also turned up a bunch of charges against somebody named Latriece Antoinette Rozelle, DOB 12/19/86. The name looks similar enough to be a relative (sister would be my guess) but, well, who knows?

I've heard it said there are only six degrees of separation between any two people in the world. In the case of Johnny Northside and Demetrius Harper, it's considerably less and...

It's a small hood after all.