A 17-year-old boy was shot and killed when a gunman opened fire on a group of people standing outside a north Minneapolis convenience store on Monday afternoon, police said.
Responding officers tried to revive the teen, whose name wasn't released, before he was transported to a nearby hospital, where he later died, said Minneapolis Police Department spokesman John Elder. Another victim, a man, suffered serious gunshot injuries, but is expected to survive, Elder said.
The boy was the city's 59th homicide victim of the year — and the ninth who was 18 or under — according to a database maintained by the Star Tribune.
Elder said the two victims were standing with a group of people in the parking lot of the Super USA, at 3807 N. Fremont Av. when at least one suspect opened fire. A graphic video posted online captured the shooting's aftermath, showing a number of people milling around outside the store, some speaking frantically, while the boy lay face down on the pavement.
A witness, who declined to be identified, said that he was driving by when he had noticed a green truck pull up to the group and then heard bursts of gunfire — "big shells, like bup, bup, bup." The witness said he pulled into the parking lot and rushed over to the boy to offer aid, but stopped when a woman instructed him not to move the body.
No arrests had been announced as of Monday afternoon.
The incident continued a surge in bloodshed since the unrest after the May 25 killing of George Floyd and the riots that followed, with the city setting a 20-year high in homicides late last month. In the crime-heavy 1990s, the city regularly recorded more than 60 homicides per year — including an all-time high of 97 in 1995 — but as in other cities across the country the number of slayings slowly declined in the ensuing years.
But the city has seen a resurgence of violence this year, which experts attribute to a variety of factors ranging from warming temperatures and unrest over police brutality to the economic and psychological strain of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the same time, they point out that overall crime remains at generational lows across the country.
