A man was shot and killed outside a residence in St. Paul's North End on Monday, marking the city's 31st homicide of the year.
Officers were called just before 2 p.m. to the 500 block of W. Jessamine Avenue, on the outskirts of Marydale Park. Upon arrival, they found a male with a gunshot wound to the head, according to emergency dispatch audio. He died at the scene.
Minutes earlier, a 911 caller had reported that the victim approached the door of their house demanding to get inside, "screaming that he is bleeding," according to scanner audio.
Investigators set up a perimeter and closed part of the road as they combed the area for evidence. Barriers were erected around the victim's body, which lay in the frozen street near the trunk of a bloodied white vehicle — several feet away from a "Little Tikes" basketball hoop.
Shawn Perriera, a truck driver, said he was working on his trailer down the block when he heard two quick pops of gunfire. Worried about a friend who lived in the direction of the shots, he dropped what he was doing and walked down Jessamine.
Perriera told the Star Tribune he saw a man casually walking from a blue two-story home on the corner of Kent and Jessamine toward a white sedan parked out front. But Perriera got distracted when his friend approached from the driveway and never saw the man fall to the ground.
He didn't realize the man he saw was the one shot until police arrived.
"It's just unbelievable," said Perriera, who noted that this stretch was known for auto theft but not such violent crime.
