As deadly gunfire continues, reward now at $180,000 for information on shootings of three young children in Minneapolis

A record $180,000 reward was offered Monday for information in the shootings that left two young Minneapolis children dead this spring and a third fighting for his life, as the city emerged from another violent weekend.

The reward was announced at a news conference outside a North Side police station, shortly after a man was gunned down a few miles away — the city's fourth homicide in 48 hours. At least seven other people were struck by gunfire and survived in that span, according to police.

Sharrie Jennings looked around at the gathered elected officials and law enforcement and demanded to know what they were going to do about the violence, including the shooting of her 10-year-old grandson Ladavionne Garrett Jr., who was critically injured with a gunshot wound to the head.

"When did it get to the point where our kids can't ride in the car? Where did it get to the point where our kids can't go to McDonalds? When did it get to the point where our kids can't jump on trampolines?" she asked, referencing the killings of Aniya Allen, 6, and 9-year-old Trinity Ottoson-Smith, who were shot within days of each other in May.

Jennings said her grandson has started physical therapy six days a week and is recovering from the injuries suffered when a bullet pierced the car he was riding in. But, she added, he will likely never be the same again.

The reward, offered by Spotlight on Crime and Crime Stoppers, coincides with a billboard campaign seeking information leading to an arrest and conviction in the three shootings, which have come to symbolize the indiscriminate gun violence plaguing parts of the city. Tipsters can remain anonymous, officials said.

Allen's grandfather, longtime peace activist K.G. Wilson, said he was angry that someone out there knows something about the shooting but is unwilling to come forward.

"This is a horror movie," said Booker Hodges, assistant commissioner for the Minnesota Department of Public Safety. Hodges said he grew up on these same North Side streets and remembers the 2000 shooting of 11-year-old Kevin Brewer, whose death remains unsolved despite a $150,000 reward.

"It's one of those things, living over north, we can't keep making these movies," Hodges said.

A search warrant affidavit filed this summer suggested that police investigators had matched one of the spent casings recovered at the scene of Allen's death to a gun used in a shooting outside a Northeast bar. But no arrests have been announced in that case or the others.

Violent crime has continued to climb since last summer, when the city was rocked by mass protests over police brutality and systemic racism.

A Star Tribune database shows that 59 people have been killed by someone else's hand so far in 2021, 10 more than this time last year, which finished with 84 slayings. The number of people wounded or killed by gunfire in the city has jumped to 394 from 317, police statistics show.

Most of the gunfire remains concentrated in the 3rd and 4th police precincts in southeast and north Minneapolis — home to the city's most historically disenfranchised neighborhoods. Three-fourths of all shootings have occurred in those two precincts alone, police statistics show. And even in those areas, only a handful of blocks account for much of the violence.

The most recent streak of deadly violence started just after 9 p.m. Saturday when gunfire broke out near the Winner Gas Station, which sits on a north Minneapolis street corner with a history of gang violence. Responding officers found a fatally wounded man, who later was identified online by friends and family as Prince Martin.

Another gunshot victim showed up at an area hospital with serious but survivable injuries.

Police said the incident continued a worrying trend of powerful weapons being used at crime scenes in recent months.

On Sunday, a man was shot at another troubled corner, this time on the city's South Side. Police said the shooting possibly occurred when an altercation between two men escalated, or it could have been in retaliation for an earlier incident.

A little more than two hours later, a man was killed when gunfire broke out at a North Side convenience store. Police and street outreach workers said the shooting may have been in response to Martin's death Saturday night.

Then at 11 a.m. Monday, a man in his 30s was gunned down while sitting in a car at the AmStar gas station in the 1600 block of W. Broadway, a long-troubled corner in north Minneapolis.

Police suspect that the violence this past weekend was the latest escalation in a yearslong bloody feud between rival gang factions on the North Side — the High End and Low End factions whose territory is loosely split by W. Broadway, the area's main commercial artery.

Further complicating matters, police say they have noticed that some Low End crews in recent months have aligned themselves with south Minneapolis gangs like the 10s and the Crazii Boys.

One of the homicides involved a high-ranking High End member, which police and street outreach workers said may have led to a series of shootings in the Low End, or south of Broadway.

In all, four people were killed, and at least nine others were wounded in shootings across the city since Saturday afternoon.

Minneapolis is far from alone in seeing a rise in violence.

From Portland, Ore., to Baltimore, cities across the country saw shootings and homicides soar in 2020, a trend that has spilled over into this year. The spike has been blamed on a combination of factors, ranging from rising gun sales to entrenched inequality to frayed relations between communities and law enforcement — all made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has disproportionately affected communities of color.

Authorities have tried to address the backlog in shooting cases by forming task forces with outside agencies, such as the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) and federal partners like the FBI and ATF.

Anyone with information on the shootings of Ladavionne Garrett Jr., Aniya Allen or Trinity Ottoson-Smith is asked to contact Crime Stoppers at crimestoppersmn.org or the BCA at 877-996-6222. or e-mail the state bureau at bca.tips@state.mn.us.

Staff photographer David Joles contributed to this report.

Libor Jany • 612-673-4064 • @StribJany