MINNEAPOLIS — Governor Tim Walz is marking a promising young life that ended too soon from gun violence by declaring Sunday, March 13, 2022 Deshaun Hill Jr. Day in Minnesota.
Walz issued a proclamation in Hill's honor for the day he would have turned 16 years old. Instead, family, friends and the north side community are still stinging from the untimely loss of the accomplished student-athlete to a bullet fired in what police say was a random encounter.
The proclamation points to Hill's athletic prowess on the football field and basketball court, his academic and leadership skills and status as a role model, all things that have been regularly referenced in the days since his killing.
Charges of second-degree murder have been filed against 29-year-old Cody Logan Fohrenkam in Hill's fatal shooting, which occurred Feb. 9. A criminal complaint says surveillance cameras captured the two walking in opposite directions down a sidewalk along Golden Valley Road and passing so close to each other that investigators believe their shoulders may have brushed.
The suspect, identified later as Fohrenkam, disappears behind a tree on the video just before shots are heard ringing out.
Witnesses described the suspect as being agitated and saying he was looking for a man who had stolen his cell phone. All described him wearing red pants and running from the scene after the shots were fired.
Fohrenkam is currently being held in the Hennepin County Jail on $1 million bail.
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