More than a dozen people were wounded in two separate shootings in Minneapolis on Monday, authorities said, with eight people shot at a homeless encampment on private property and five people hurt earlier near a transit station.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara said officers learned of the encampment shooting about 10 p.m. when an off-duty officer working at a nearby retail store was approached by people running from the camp and reporting gunfire. The off-duty officer left the store and heard additional shots coming from the encampment area, O'Hara said. Officers arriving at the scene found five people with gunshot wounds, including a woman and two men with life-threatening injuries. Two other people at the scene suffered what appeared to be non-life-threatening leg wounds and were taken to hospitals. Police later learned three additional people were treated at hospitals before officers arrived, including one with life-threatening injuries.
The encampment shooting occurred just hours and blocks after a separate shooting near a transit station that left five people injured, O'Hara said. No arrests had been reported in either incident as of Tuesday morning, and investigators continue to examine ballistic and surveillance evidence and to interview witnesses. "Unfortunately, here we are yet again in the aftermath of a mass shooting," O'Hara said. "This is not normal."
The encampment sits in a parking lot reserved on private property that owner Hamoudi Sabri opened to people experiencing homelessness in July. City officials say they have repeatedly sought to shut the site, and the city sued Sabri earlier this month to force its closure. Sabri is facing about $15,000 in citations and fines related to the encampment, according to city records.
Mayor Jacob Frey said the city will clear the encampment once investigators finish processing the crime scene. "This is way worse than just a nuisance. This is a danger to the community," Frey said after the shooting.
Sabri issued a written statement criticizing local leaders' response to the recent violence and calling for a different approach. He urged the city to provide grief and trauma counselors and to deploy an emergency response that would offer hotel rooms and emergency shelter beds for people living in the encampment and others affected by the shootings. "Instead, the Mayor’s answer is the same tired move we’ve seen for years: displacement," Sabri said. "Bulldoze people’s tents, fence off their space, and call it leadership. But it isn’t leadership. It’s an illusion of control designed to make the problem less visible, not less deadly."
City officials have framed the incidents as part of a violent summer in the Minneapolis area. They point to a string of high-profile shootings that included attacks on state lawmakers in June and a mass shooting at a Minneapolis church in late August that killed two children and injured more than 20 people. Local law enforcement and elected leaders have said they are pursuing expanded investigative resources and community interventions in response to the surge in gun violence.
Investigators asked anyone with information about either shooting to contact Minneapolis police or CrimeStoppers. The department continues to process the encampment site and the area near the transit station and has not released a motive or identified any suspects as it pursues leads and forensic evidence.