Deadly shooting overnight in St. Paul

St. Paul Police say they were called to a deadly shooting around 2 a.m. in the 900 block of University Avenue in St. Paul Saturday. When police arrived, they found a man shot dead in the parking lot.

Officers secured the scene and attempted to identify any witnesses. 

“We’re looking for that personal interaction, what happened out there that led to this?” said Sgt. Mike Ernster. “We’ll take anybody’s call.”

He said, so far, only one witness has come forward.

“We need this kind of help right now in this case,” said Sgt. Ernster.

He told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS that since May 4, 2018, there have been 358 calls to Johnny Baby’s. According to Sgt. Ernster, 220 were proactive visits from police.

“To make that personal connection with them, to basically listen to what they’re saying and try to see if there’s any problems coming up,” he said.

Rick Strohmeyer lives across the street, he said there are problems every weekend.

“It’s terrifying,” he said. “Last week, there was a fight out here with 15 people with baseball bats.”

Strohmeyer said he’d like to see a solution reached.

“The owner, I know he does everything in his power when they’re inside but when they’re outside they’re up to their own free will,” said Strohmeyer.

Sgt. Ernster said they will continue to do extra patrols.

“Everybody wants a safe city,” he said. “We’re going to work as hard as we can to make it safe but we need the community to work with us, and we need people to come forward and talk to us.”

Investigators are asking anyone who was there or who knows what happened to call the Homicide Unit at 651-266-5650

According to police, nobody else was hurt and there is no ongoing threat to the public.