Juveniles arrested after shooting at MPS headquarters, leading police on chase in stolen Kia
A window was damaged at the Minneapolis Public Schools Davis Center after it was reportedly hit by gunfire Monday, May 15, 2023. (KSTP)
Three juvenile suspects were arrested Monday after they allegedly fired shots at the Minneapolis Public Schools headquarters and led officers on a chase in a stolen Kia, police said in a news release.
According to Sgt. Garrett Parten, a Minneapolis police spokesman, officers responded to a ShotSpotter activation and calls of shots fired around 2:10 p.m. near North 21st and Girard avenues. Reports soon came in of bullets damaging a window at the MPS Davis Center nearby.
Using video footage and witness reports, police tracked one of the suspect vehicles, a stolen Kia Sportage, to the intersection of Lowry and Logan Avenues. The suspect vehicle took off, and police pursued at first but disengaged when approaching a school bus that was dropping off children, Parten said.
The Kia was later spotted at North Lyndale and 25th Avenues, and police resumed the chase with the help of a Minnesota State Patrol helicopter, Parten said. The pursuit continued all the way to Portland Avenue South and 28th Street East, where the four people inside the Kia got out and ran away.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara was in the area and chased after one of the juveniles and arrested him, Parten said. In all, three of the four people in the Kia were arrested, all juvenile males. They were booked on weapons-related charges.
In a statement, O’Hara again linked the crime to a defect in some Kia and Hyundai models that makes them easy to steal. He also pressed prosecutors to bring harsher penalties against juvenile offenders.
“The reckless and violent behavior being undertaken by juveniles in stolen Kia and Hyundai vehicles is an emergency,” said Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara. “These juveniles are a danger to themselves and to anyone who happens to be around them. For the past year, they have been allowed to continue to wreak havoc in our neighborhoods with no recourse and no consequences. We cannot continue to tolerate this behavior.”
Police partially credited the arrests to a revised MPD policy enacted two weeks ago that allows officers to pursue vehicles in cases of felony firearm discharges.