On Sunday, according to an announcement made by the Minneapolis Police Department on Twitter, one man has died and 11 others have suffered nonlife threatening injuries after a shooting at Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis, MN.
All victims were adults who had suffered “various severity levels of injuries,” the police department tweeted.
A preliminary investigation revealed that “individuals on foot” started shooting in the area and then fled the scene.
Law enforcement officers have not yet found any motive for the shooting and have not taken any suspects into custody.
A video of the aftermath posted on Facebook showed people providing assistance to the wounded outside Hoban Korean BBQ, a restaurant near which the incident occurred.
The restaurant manager, Fred Huang, said that he heard “a lot of shots” adding that people tried to enter the restaurant for safety but shots were soon fired inside as well. Huang stated that he found three different types of shells in the restaurant after the incident.
“People were trying to rush inside the restaurant for safety. It was a very scary experience. … We have bullet holes inside our restaurant like on the walls and stuff. All of our front glass was broken and shattered. Then, just like people being in here panicking and running around, breaking this or that, it was very chaotic.”
Huang also stated that law enforcement officers arrived 30 minutes after the shooting ensued and after multiple 911 calls were made.
“Something needs to be done to protect us. Normally the bars on Saturday night, we all have off-duty police officers as extra security parked in front of our businesses. But no one has that right now because police are a liability for us,” Huang said in reference to the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis which has sparked nationwide protests demanding policing reforms.
However, Minneapolis Police Department spokesman John Elder, disputed Huang’s account stating that law enforcement officers arrived at the scene within three minutes after a call was placed by other officers who had heard gunshots in the area.
Police Chief Medaria Arradondo attributed the shooting to an “uptick in violent crime” in Minneapolis, calling the incident “tragic and senseless.”
She added that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and state agencies will assist the department in dealing with the recent surge in mass shootings.
“We have seen unfortunately in the past several months an uptick in violent crime in Minneapolis, and we are certainly doing our best to address that. This is going to take more than just the Minneapolis Police Department. The numbers we are seeing are truly … a public health crisis.”
FBI spokesman Kevin Smith said in confirmation of Arradondo’s statement that the FBI is “assessing what assets [they] can bring to bear here.”
This incident is only one of the multiple shootings that have occurred in Minneapolis since Saturday with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey responding that the shootings “only compounds our grief” over Floyd’s death.
“The lawlessness serves no purpose and it won’t be tolerated. Local residents deserve better,” Frey added, calling the recent shootings “totally a distraction from the work we need on the structural police reforms we need to do.”
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