A Warren County man received a 19 ½ year sentence and will be subjected to serving a minimum term of 15 years after being ruled an armed career criminal.

United States Attorney Robert J. Higdon Jr. said in a statement Kimjuan Ellis Jr., 25, of Warrenton must serve five years of supervised release upon completion of his sentence.

Ellis was sentenced in Raleigh by United States District Judge James C. Dever III.

Ellis was named in an indictment filed last January 9 and was charged with being a felon in possession of ammunition.  

On August 20, 2019, he pleaded guilty to that charge. 

According to the investigation, on October 19, 2018, officers with the Norlina Police Department responded to a shooting in the parking lot of the Blue Waves convenience store.  

The store’s surveillance camera captured Ellis shooting another man in the chest after an apparent argument. He fled the scene after the shooting.  

The victim was transported to Duke University Medical Center where he was treated for his wounds and survived.  

Officers recovered a spent shell casing in the area where the video captured the shooting.  

The gun used by Ellis was never recovered.  He was later arrested in a vehicle with two other occupants, along with additional firearms and ammunition, one of which had been stolen.

None of those firearms, however, was used in the shooting. 

This case is part of Project Guardian, the Department of Justice’s initiative to reduce gun violence and enforce federal firearms laws. 

This case is also part of Project Safe Neighborhoods, a program bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce violent crime.   

ATF, the Warren County Sheriff’s Office, and the Norlina Police Department conducted the investigation of this matter jointly.  

Assistant United States Attorney Robert J. Dodson prosecuted the case for the government.