A shooting on St. Paul’s East Side left one person dead Monday evening, police say.
Officers were dispatched about 5:30 p.m. to the 800 block of North Hazel Street, after multiple 911 callers reported shots being fired in the parking lot of an apartment complex, according to a news release issued by the St. Paul Police Department.
When police arrived, they found a male lying in the parking lot with an apparent gunshot wound. Fire Department paramedics pronounced him dead.
While some officers secured the scene, others searched the neighborhood for a suspect, with the assistance of a Minnesota State Patrol helicopter.
No arrests had been made as of 8:45 p.m. Monday, as homicide investigators worked to identify potential witnesses.
“It was a very scary incident for everybody who was in the area,” said Steve Linders, a police spokesman. “It’s a parking lot … at a time of day when a lot of people are coming and going, so it was a pretty brazen shooting.”
Police asked anyone with information about the shooting to contact investigators at 651-266-5650.
The Ramsey County medical examiner will conduct an autopsy tomorrow and identify the person who was killed, Linder said.
Another shooting in the same parking lot injured a 27-year-old man in a vehicle just over a week ago, police said.
The vehicle arrived at Regions Hospital about 4:45 p.m. on July 25 with five people inside, including the injured man. A 6-year-old girl was sitting next to him at the time of the shooting.
Police said they learned the shooting took place in the parking lot on Hazel Street, where they found at least one parked vehicle struck by a bullet.
St. Paul police have received 29 calls for service at that apartment complex in the past year, Linders said.
Monday’s homicide was the 16th of 2021 in St. Paul. There were 19 in the city at this time last year.
Police say 122 people have been wounded or killed by gunfire this year, compared with 123 at this point in 2020.
Police have received 1,335 reports of shots fired so far, while there were 1,234 as of this time last year.
