City officials express frustration after string of shootings leave 2 dead, 2 injured in Minneapolis, suspect arrested
Minneapolis police have arrested a man suspected in three shootings in Minneapolis on Wednesday that left two people dead and two others injured.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said during a press conference a man in his 30s died Wednesday afternoon when another man walked up to him near Bloomington Avenue and 25th Street and shot him in the head. The man, whose identity has not yet been released, was declared dead at the scene.
Multiple squad cars and crime scene tape were captured by a 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS photographer.
The chief was accompanied by Mayor Jacob Frey, who spoke about the violence in the city, saying, “Two murders, two encampments, in 12 hours. That anybody would say that this kind of safety hazard is okay is completely ridiculous.”
“These encampments are not in place because of a lack of housing,” Frey continued. “These encampments are in place, let’s be very clear, because of fentanyl.”
Chief O’Hara said 13% of all violent crime this year in the Third Precinct has occured within about 500 feet of an encampment.
Earlier in the day Wednesday, a 20-year-old man was shot and killed, and a man in his 30s was injured near a separate encampment.
The 20-year-old was identified Thursday as Roland Scott Littleowl.
RELATED: Deadly shooting near Minneapolis homeless encampment; community members say they’re ‘fed up’
The area where that shooting took place is a known homeless encampment, according to O’Hara, though it is unknown if anyone involved in the shooting was a part of the encampment. It is also believed that neither of the two men who were shot had fired at each other and that a third person is responsible.
“It’s sad, [there’s] kids as young as 4 years old coming out on a murder scene to go to school. And then we have, at the end of school today, a couple of blocks away, we got kids coming home to see the same thing,” O’Hara said. “It’s extremely tragic, and it’s frustrating.”
Then around 7:20 p.m., a man suffered a potentially life-threatening gunshot wound on the 2300 block of 17th Avenue South, according to Minneapolis police. Authorities said he was brought to Hennepin Healthcare.
Officials said about 15 minutes after that shooting, officers arrested a man without incident near 26th Street East and 17th Avenue South.
O’Hara said that the man they arrested is suspected in both homicides near the homeless encampments along with the shooting on the 2300 block of 17th Avenue South.
“I am so proud and grateful for the dedicated work of our officers who worked with urgency and captured a suspected violent criminal who went on a shooting rampage today,” said O’Hara. “We will all continue to serve with a sense of urgency to impact the gun violence that continues to occur at an unacceptable level.”
Investigators are still working to determine the suspect’s motive for the three shootings.
Click here for a map of active encampments in Minneapolis.