St. Paul shooting victim identified; was released from prison last year for fatal crash

Oct. 20--Police identified a man who was fatally shot in St. Paul on Wednesday night as Eddie Cortez Smith.

Smith, 40, of St. Paul, was found wounded about 11 p.m. outside of Born's Bar in the 800 block of Rice Street. He was taken to Regions Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Police said he had been involved in an altercation with another man.

Police spokesman Steve Linders said the suspected shooter called 911 to report the incident and identified himself as the shooter.

The suspect, a 31-year-old Forest Lake man, was arrested but had not been charged by late Friday.

The motive and circumstances that led to the shooting remain under investigation, Linders said. Police recovered two guns at the scene.

Jurors convicted Smith in 2011 on two counts of criminal vehicular homicide for drunken driving and killing 93-year-old St. Paul resident Edith Schouveller in March 2010.

Smith crashed into a car Schouveller was riding in. He had a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.11 percent.

A judge sentenced Smith to 10 years in prison, the maximum for the crime. He was released under supervision in September 2017. An assistant Ramsey County attorney told a judge at Smith's sentencing that he had 55 traffic and criminal convictions at that point, including six convictions for driving without insurance and 37 convictions for driving after revocation or suspension. Smith never had a Minnesota driver's license, the prosecutor said.

CHAO XIONG

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