Second arrest made in unintentional shooting in Cedar Rapids

CEDAR RAPIDS - Police have arrested a second suspect in what they describe as the unintentional death of 15-year-old Senquez Jackson, accusing a Waterloo felon of spiriting away the gun involved in the teen's shooting.

The weapon used in the March 18 shooting has yet to be found by investigators, authorities said.

According to a Linn County Attorney's Office criminal complaint, Queshandis R. Seals, 20, was charged with control of a firearm by a felon and obstructing prosecution. Court documents show he admitted taking possession of the gun that killed Jackson and concealing it for a night.

Seals was arrested Monday at the Linn County Jail, where he had been serving a 10-day sentence for assault with injury, according to Linn County Sheriff Brian Gardner.

Authorities have said Dennis Warren, 13, was handling a 38-caliber semi-automatic pistol inside a home at 1424 Bever Ave. SE on the evening of March 18. The clip was removed from the weapon, but a round was still chambered and the gun discharged, fatally striking Jackson.

A criminal complaint charging Warren with involuntary manslaughter, carrying weapons, preventing apprehension and obstructing prosecution said the gun in question did not belong to Warren, but did not explain how he had obtained it.

The complaint shows that after the shooting, Warren gave the gun to someone at the McDonald's on First Avenue to keep police from finding it.

Cedar Rapids public safety spokesman Greg Buelow said Tuesday police could not provide any information on 'how the gun was transferred or to whom.”

However, Seals' criminal complaint indicates he was the recipient of the weapon. The complaint states Seals got the gun on March 18 - the day of the shooting - and at the First Avenue McDonalds. Warren is not named in the complaint.

Seals then gave the gun to a 'third party” on March 19, according to the complaint. Jackson was declared dead that same day.

'It still is a very active case and an additional person or persons could be charged,” Buelow said.

Online court records show Seals was granted a deferred judgment in November 2015 on charges of possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver and carrying weapons in Black Hawk County.

According to the Waterloo Courier, the charges are from a July 2014 incident in Waterloo in which Seals was found with a pistol and a bag of marijuana.

The gun had been stolen during an April 2014 burglary, the Courier reported. The newspaper reported that, in all, 28 handguns, rifles and shotguns were stolen from a gun safe during that residential burglary.

Four teens were taken into custody in connection with that burglary. Seals told authorities he had paid $160 for the pistol, the Courier reported, but a jury acquitted him of gun trafficking.