Woman shot, killed in minivan in north Mpls. was 'in wrong place, at wrong time'

A woman fatally shot as she sat in a minivan in north Minneapolis on Thursday evening was not the intended target of the gunfire that killed her, police said.

Officers called to the scene in the 2100 block of Penn Avenue N. about 6 p.m. found the woman in the vehicle with a gunshot wound. She was taken by ambulance to North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale, where she died.

She is the city's 10th homicide victim of the year.

"This appears to be an innocent victim — someone who was in the wrong place at the wrong time," said police spokesman John Elder. "There's no indication [she] was engaged with the shooter."

The woman's death came on a night of frequent gunfire in the area. The shooting that killed her was one of three in the area Thursday night. Two other people suffered noncritical wounds in the others, Elder said.

In the Penn Avenue N. shooting, the suspected shooters may have been firing at a different vehicle, a tan sedan, but stray bullets may have hit the minivan instead, according to scanner audio.

Just after the shooting, officers were called to a house in the 2100 block of Oliver Avenue N. into which suspects may have fled. Several people suspected of having links to the shooting were arrested and are being questioned by police, Elder said.

Photos tweeted from the scene showed a group of residents gathering after the shooting to watch, mourn and pray.

Detectives worked at the scene and officers canvassed the area into the night. The minivan the woman had been in was towed from the scene about 10 p.m.

In roughly the first five months of this year, 123 people have been shot and wounded or killed in Minneapolis — 97 of them in north Minneapolis — compared with 65 during the same period last year. At the current pace, north Minneapolis will eclipse last year's total of gunshot victims by late September.

Anyone with information is asked to call the police tip line at 612-692-TIPS (8477).