Police suspect 2 shootings that left 4 dead in Minneapolis were
connected and gang related
[May 01, 2025]
By STEVE KARNOWSKI
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Investigators strongly suspect that a pair of
shootings three blocks apart in Minneapolis that left four people dead
and two others seriously injured were connected and were gang related,
the police chief said Wednesday.
The first shooting happened late Tuesday and killed three people. The
second, which happened around 1 p.m. Wednesday, killed one person. A
bullet fired during that shooting just barely missed two young children
in a nearby vehicle, police Chief Brian O'Hara said.
The police chief said at a news conference that investigators believe
all of the victims were Native Americans and that the shootings had
shaken the large Indigenous community in the Phillips neighborhood south
of downtown.
He told reporters that investigators were still trying to establish a
link between the shootings, and he declined to speculate on a motive or
give details about any suspected gang connections. He said the
investigation was still at its early stages. No arrests have been made.
“We’re three blocks away. The community’s saying something’s going on
here, ”he said. "We have to follow the evidence. I cannot speculate. You
can make your own assumptions based off the facts.”
The killings followed a period of relative peace in Minneapolis, which
like many cities saw an increase in crime during the COVID-19 pandemic
and after the 2020 murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.
But crime fell in many major cities last year, and Minneapolis recently
went two months without a homicide until a man was shot to death April
19. It was the city's longest period without a homicide in a decade,
according to police. Authorities have credited the work of community
organizations and a federal crackdown on local gang members.
“Our entire city is grieving right now," Mayor Jacob Frey told
reporters. "And we know that our Native community is feeling that trauma
quite acutely.”
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A police officer works on the scene as a bystander is shook up by
the homicide in front of 2107 Cedar Ave S in Minneapolis, Minn., on
Wednesday, April 30, 2025. (Richard Tsong-Taatarii/Star Tribune via
AP)
In the late Tuesday shooting, four people were shot in a vehicle and
one on a nearby sidewalk, according to police. O'Hara said a
20-year-old woman, a 17-year-old boy and a 27-year-old man were
killed. A 28-year-old man and a 20-year-old woman were taken to a
hospital with life-threatening injuries. O'Hara said the man
remained in grave condition Wednesday afternoon.
Wednesday's shooting happened outside an apartment building that
houses the Minneapolis offices of the Red Lake Nation tribe. A man
in his 30s died, O'Hara said.
“What is even more disturbing,” he added, was that one round from
the shooting went through the rear door of an SUV "and passed just
beneath the legs of two children in child seats, an infant and a
toddler.”
O'Hara reiterated his earlier statements that it was “very clear”
that victims of the first shooting were deliberately targeted and
that it was “potentially gang related.”
The chief did not say whether the fatal shootings might have been
connected with another nearby shooting overnight in which a man was
dropped off at a hospital with a non-life-threatening gunshot wound.
O'Hara appealed for anyone with information to come forward.
"We need everyone to stand up and say this is not OK," he said. "And
law enforcement will not rest until everyone involved in both of
these incidents is brought into custody.
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