A South Sudanese man kills a white neighbor in Sioux Falls, USA.
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Murder suspect goes to court: Watch Peter Deng Mayen, who has been charge in the murder of Bruce Richard Walters on Sunday night, walks to a court hearing
Peter Deng Mayen is escorted to court Monday. He is accused in the slaying of his neighbor, Bruce Walters. / Emily Spartz / Argus Leader
Neighbors’ squabbles boiled over into fatal shooting
Police called 17 times this year over feuding
The fifth homicide of the year in Sioux Falls is described by friends and police as a deadly bubbling over of a long-simmering dispute between neighbors. It was marked by harassment and threats of violence and ended Sunday night in a shooting death.
A judge Monday set bond at $1 million cash for Peter Deng Mayen, 29, who is charged with one count of first-degree murder in the shooting death of 51-year-old Bruce Richard Walters in northeast Sioux Falls.
Police say Mayan approached his neighbor with a handgun at 8:30 p.m. at his home, 1505 E. Sage Place, and shot him at least five times. By the time officers arrived, Walters was dead on his porch from wounds to his chest. Mayen was apprehended at a friend’s house shortly after the killing.
Before Sunday night, the police had been called to resolve conflicts between them 17 times this year, and both men had accused the other of threatening to use a gun. The calls involved varying reports of noise complaints, disorderly conduct or juvenile delinquency, and both households had repeatedly asked for police intervention. On nine of those occasions, police were called to Mayen’s house. Eight of the calls were directed to a disturbance at Walters’ address.
Accused shooter wanted police help
“(Police) would say. ‘You guys just ignore him,’ ” Aware Geu Mayen, Peter Dent’s wife, said outside the courtroom Monday. “We needed the police to be there before what happened yesterday.”
Police spokesman Sam Clemens said such advice is common in disputes between neighbors, especially when no actual violence is reported.
Peter Mayen was cited once this summer for making unreasonable noise. That was the only one of the 17 calls that resulted in a police report.
“You need to have a crime committed before you can arrest someone,” Clemens said. “And arresting someone isn’t necessarily going to solve the problem if you live next door.”
Much of Sunday’s incident was caught on video. Walters had installed a surveillance system in his home because of tension between the households.
Investigators now are trying to piece together what specifically led to the vicious uptick in violence on Sunday, Clemens said.
What is known: Peter Mayen approached his neighbor with a handgun at at 8:30 p.m. at his home after walking by with his elementary school-aged children and dropping them off at a friend’s house, Clemens said. Peter Mayen and Walters exchanged words as the suspect walked by the garage and back to his home. Mayen then returned and shot him.
“What was said, what was not said, that’s kind of up in the air,” Clemens said.
Friends and family of both men were in court Monday, filling the first and second rows of the small sixth-floor courtroom and weeping as Judge Alan Dietrich read the charge and the name of the victim.
Two lawyers with the Minnehaha County public defender’s office declined to argue for their client’s pre-trial release, and Dietrich set a cash-only bond at the amount requested by Minnehaha County State’s Attorney Aaron McGowan.
McGowan told Dietrich that Peter Mayen “made admissions” in the shooting.
After the hearing, Aware Mayen said Walters had harassed and threatened the Sudanese couple and their four children for months, telling them to “go back where they came from.”
‘This guy was really scaring us’
The family was ready to move to a new house, she said.
“This guy was really scaring us,” Aware Mayen said. “No one believed it until this happened.”
Walters’ family and friends declined to comment on the situation outside the courtroom. One woman, who did not wish to be identified, said, “All I can say is he did not deserve that.”
Neighbors said the Mayens played a part in the ongoing conflict as well.
Paul and Jeanette Granum live across the street from Walters and heard the shots from their dining room table hours after joining the couple for a Sunday afternoon motorcycle ride.
“They were young enough to be our children, but they were just really good friends,” Jeanette Granum said of Walters and his wife.
The Granums said they never saw or heard any of the disputes, but they knew about the problems.
Reach reporter John Hult at 350-5998.
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