Edward Johnson Jr.

Edward Johnson, Jr. 53, was killed near West Florissant Avenue and Canfield Drive. Johnson's 16-year-old daughter, who was riding in the car with her dad, was uninjured in the shooting, police said. She witnessed the attack and told police that two pedestrians were in the road and her dad honked at them, Ferguson police Officer Sammy Numan wrote in court documents. The pedestrians pulled guns as she and her father drove by, Numan said. One of them opened fire, hitting her dad in the back, court records said. Johnson then crashed the car into a residence near Ellison and Canfield drives. Johnson died shortly after arriving at a hospital. When police arrived, strangers were comforting the teenager. Johnson, 53, lived in the 10400 block of Royal Drive in north St. Louis County. The father of two was a 1990 graduate of Riverview Gardens and a former employee in logistics at World Wide Technology who was working for a security company. "He was so funny," said his sister, Charmell Johnson of Berkeley. "And when I say funny, I mean he was so corny." She said her brother was taking his daughter home when he was shot. She lives in a nearby apartment. "He just honked his horn, and they just turned around and shot him immediately," Charmell Johnson said. Her niece, she said, is reeling. "She is very traumatized," she said. Belafae Johnson Jr., a pastor in Belleville, is the victim's cousin. "We live in just a fallen, broken world," he said in an interview Tuesday. "So many people are tense and uptight. Negativity seems to be our first response now ... the lack of grace and empathy. The need to react, it's scary." Belafae Johnson added that it's horrific for the daughter to watch her father die in that way, and it's heartbreaking that "for whatever reason (the gunman) thought he had to carry a loaded gun at 10 o'clock in the morning." Police talked to witnesses and watched video surveillance. Investigators suspected the killer was in a nearby apartment complex, Numan said. The daughter told investigators that a man wearing a black hoodie and red pants was the gunman who killed her father; police obtained a search warrant for a nearby apartment and found clothes matching that description at the bottom of a trash bag, Numan said. Officers are still investigating the identity of the other pedestrian. Numan said Deandre U. Spruill Jr., 26, described the 9mm gun he used. Police found the gun in the apartment, Numan said. Spruill lives in the 1500 block of Northwinds Estates Drive in Ferguson. He was charged with second-degree murder and armed criminal action.