Debbie Kukowski recalled on Tuesday when her teen grandson called her phone to say his father — her 36-year-old son — had been shot.
Dustin Kukowski was hit in the chest by a bullet during a fight with a man at Welsch’s Big Ten Tavern in Arden Hills on March 25, 2022. The Mounds View father of two children died 11 days later while hospitalized.
Dustin Kukowski (Courtesy of Debbie Kukowski)
“I had to be strong, even though I didn’t want to,” she told Ramsey County District Judge John Guthmann. “I had to tell my grandson. The pain in that child’s eyes … his dad was his world.”
The shooter, Eric Eugene Baker, 47, of Minneapolis, admitted to the killing this December, pleading guilty to an amended charge of first-degree manslaughter with an 11-year prison term as part of an agreement with the prosecution. He was sentenced Tuesday.
Baker was originally charged with first-degree assault, then third-degree murder after Kukowski’s death. Baker’s attorney filed a motion in court of their intent to claim self-defense at trial. The plea deal was reached two weeks before trial was set to begin.
Assistant Ramsey County Attorney Erin Gustafson told Guthmann on Tuesday that “a lot of time” was spent between the parties to reach “this plea deal that we think is fair.” She also noted how Baker expressed remorse during the presentence investigation, adding: “That is not something you see very often.”
Meanwhile, one more case remains open in connection with the shooting.
The owner of the bar, James Henrey Welsch, faces a felony aiding an offender charge for allegedly hiding Baker’s gun and lying to investigators when he claimed a video surveillance system did not capture the shooting. Welsch, 47, of Vadnais Heights, is a friend of Baker, the charges say. Welsch has a trial set for June.
Handgun on video
Ramsey County sheriff’s office deputies were called to the bar at 4703 U.S. Highway 10 around 12:30 a.m. and saw a patron holding napkins to Kukowski’s chest. A deputy who took over first aid saw that he had a gunshot wound that was gushing blood when pressure was removed.
Kukowski was transported to Regions Hospital in St. Paul, where doctors performed several surgeries to try to save his life.
Deputies spoke to a man at the bar who said Baker had asked him for a ride “to grab something,” the charges say. He drove Baker to Baker’s girlfriend’s apartment, where he was inside for no more than 15 minutes.
Eric Eugene Baker (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)
He said they returned to the bar, where he then saw Baker and another man fighting. The man fell to the floor.
Deputies found a single 9mm shell casing. Bar surveillance video showed Baker with a handgun moments before the fight, the charges say.
Baker was arrested about two hours later at the DoubleTree by Hilton in Roseville. He declined to provide a statement to authorities.
The charges do not say what sparked the fight.
Victim ‘wasn’t perfect’
Witnesses said Kukowski was “being somewhat antagonistic that night,” Gustafson said Tuesday. “However, the defendant had numerous opportunities to leave the scene and numerous opportunities to leave the situation — and he didn’t,” she said.
During a trial, Gustafson said, bar video would have shown Baker pacing back and forth with a gun in his hand.
“The victim here wasn’t perfect,” Gustafson said. “But he would still be alive if the defendant hadn’t escalated the situation and approached him with a gun.”
Meanwhile, Baker’s attorney, Adrian Montez, said the video also would have shown Kukowski “lunging at my client before he was fatally shot. That would have been seen at trial. But we’re not here to muddy the waters. Mr. Baker knows what he did.”
Baker has been in trouble with the law since 1995, court records show. He has 10 prior felony convictions, including aiding and abetting an offender, aiding and abetting theft, second-degree burglary and first-degree drug possession.
At the time of the shooting, Baker had an open third-degree assault case out of Anoka County stemming from an incident at a Spring Lake Park bar in August 2020.
According to the criminal complaint, witnesses told police that Baker and a man got into a verbal altercation at Monte’s Bar at 8299 University Ave. N.E. The witnesses said Baker then “cold-cocked” the man, knocking him to the ground. The man, who lost consciousness, was hospitalized with injuries that included a facial fracture.
Before giving Baker his sentence Tuesday, Guthmann noted his violent past, telling him: “You have to look inward and control your triggers. It’s something you have to address, because you’re a relatively young man and not going to be in jail forever … and I don’t think you want to make more victims. There are a lot of family members here today who are sad and suffering from this loss. And it will be with them forever.”
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