A hail of gun violence in St. Paul began with a teen shot to death in a park Sunday evening and ended almost exactly 24 hours later when a 30-year-old man was fatally shot at an apartment in the city's Payne-Phalen neighborhood.
Those 24 hours also saw six injured in shootings in the city. Since Friday, police logged more than 30 reports of shots fired.
In the most recent incident, at 6:45 p.m. Monday, police went to an apartment building in the 400 block of E. Magnolia Avenue, where they found a 30-year-old man with a gunshot wound. He was taken to Regions Hospital, where he died.
Police were seeking at least one suspect, according to scanner audio. Police also said a white Mercedes sedan "is involved," and at least one officer on scanner traffic reported that the Mercedes was seen "earlier" at Indian Mounds Park, where multiple shots broke out during a large gathering Sunday night, killing an 18-year-old man and injuring another person.
It was not clear whether the shootings Sunday night and Monday night were related. "We're still trying to figure that our ourselves," St. Paul police Sgt. Mike Ernster said late Monday. "We're dealing with people who think it's OK to resort to violence … with firearms to settle their differences, and we're not going to stand for it."
Ernster called the level of violence "outrageous." He said residents will notice a "more robust police presence in areas of the city where shootings most frequently occur."
A "shooting response team" will be created to respond to shots-fired calls and "the response will be immediate and the information gathered will be used to identify and arrest suspects and prevent further violence," Ernster said.
Police arrested a 24-year-old man Monday morning in connection with the Sunday shooting and booked him on suspicion of murder.
