One man was killed and 11 people suffered non-life-threatening injuries when gunfire erupted early Sunday in one of the most violent shootings in Minneapolis history, police said.
The shots were fired on the 2900 block of Hennepin Avenue, “where windows at a shoe store and the Uptown Theatre were apparently shot out,” Star Tribune reporter Libor Jany said in a tweet early Sunday.
He added in a separate tweet that a woman — whom the paper later identified as Alyssa Tyson — said her 23-year-old daughter, Taija, had been shot twice, including a bullet that tore into her leg and struck her femur.
The name and age of the deceased man weren’t immediately released, and it was unclear if anyone was arrested after the hail of gunfire, which left the victims with “various severity levels of injuries,” the news outlet reported, citing police.
Authorities did not provide a motive for the shooting, which apparently involved people firing at each other.
The spasm of violence erupted about 12:37 a.m. Sunday, when cops responded to reports of gunfire during a large gathering on Hennepin Avenue, police spokesman John Elder told the paper.
He said responding officers found several victims and learned that others had left the area in “private vehicles.”
Tyson told the Star Tribune that her daughter, who was injured in the shooting, had gone down to Uptown with a male companion, who ended up being struck by a bullet that passed close to his spine.
The mother said she had been asleep when her son called to say that Taija had been shot. After throwing on some clothes, she raced to the downtown hospital, she told the paper.
“The young lady who was with my daughter said it was, like, 80 shots,” she said, adding that she was stunned to hear how many people were wounded.
“I’m just pretty much speechless,” she said. “That’s a lot of people’s lives that are about to be changed, and for one person, that’s no more Christmases, no more birthdays.”
Minneapolis has been at the center of anti-racism and police brutality demonstrations that have spread across the country since George Floyd, a black man, died while being restrained by a white cop.
An initial tweet from police advised the public to avoid the area in Uptown Minneapolis, a commercial district that includes several bars and eateries.
Screams were heard on a video posted to Facebook that showed the aftermath at the chaotic scene.
Crowds gathered, with some crouched over victims sprawled on the pavement before police showed up to attend to them. Blood was visible on the ground after the victims were taken to local hospitals.
On June 1, Minnesota began allowing bars and restaurants to reopen with limited service after about six weeks of closure because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The location where the shooting occurred is about 3 miles west of the commercial area and neighborhood hit by rioting in the wake of Floyd’s May 25 death, which has sparked a move to overhaul the police force.
A majority of City Council members pledged support for dismantling a department that many community activists have called brutal and racist.
The shooting was one of the most violent in the history of Minneapolis, where seven people were shot earlier this month, one fatally, when a fight in a bar spilled outside and then escalated into gunfire, the Star Tribune reported.
In 2014, nine people were shot inside a downtown nightclub. One of the victims, a 27-year-old man, later died in a crime that remains unsolved.
Two years later, seven people were injured and one was killed when gunfire erupted on a North Side block where a gang vigil was taking place.
In the city’s deadliest mass shooting, a gunman burst into Accent Signage Systems in 2012 and gunned down six people before turning the gun on himself.
With Post Wires