Two people were wounded in a shooting at a restaurant in downtown Minneapolis around bar-closing time early Saturday, Minneapolis police said.
Two wounded in shooting at Crave in downtown Minneapolis
Gunfire broke out on the rooftop of a Hennepin Avenue restaurant about 2 a.m. Saturday.
July 13, 2019 at 11:55PM
Responding about 2 a.m. to a report of shots fired on the rooftop of Crave American Kitchen & Sushi Bar at 825 S. Hennepin Av., police found a man and a woman with noncritical gunshot wounds. Both were taken by ambulance to HCMC.
The restaurant has a rooftop dining and bar area that is open until 2 a.m.
"Officers arrived to a very chaotic scene as persons were fleeing the area," police spokesman John Elder said.
Police found the victims as they worked to evacuate the scene.
The shooter had fled before officers arrived.
Police interviewed people who were in the area of the shooting, and the Minneapolis crime lab collected evidence.
The victims have not been identified. "This does not appear to be a bias-motivated crime," Elder said, adding that it may have resulted from "a dispute of some sort."
No one is in custody, and police are investigating.
At a news conference Saturday, Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo said downtown Minneapolis has experienced a slight uptick in violent crime this year, following a significant drop in 2018, which represented a 30-year low.
"One of the things we are seeing in a lot of gun violence incidents is it's not just one shooter and one victim, it's multiple shooters and multiple victims," Arradondo said.
Minneapolis police have seized more than 400 firearms so far in 2019, he said.
Last year, police seized more than 700 handguns, shotguns, rifles and other semi-automatic weapons, although those recoveries were down by more than a third from the previous decade.
The city's growing population has increased the need for police resources, the chief said.
Earlier this year he said he'd like to expand the department from 888 sworn officers to at least 1,000 as the city continues to grow.
Arradondo said he has submitted a budget proposal to city officials that would allow him to increase beat officers, investigators and community outreach officers.
"I'm trying to play catch-up for years" of understaffing, he said. "We've neglected the resources of the police department. With the expansion of our population and with the demands asked of us, that's going to have a cost."
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