Midday shooting on Minneapolis street leaves man dead, police hunting for gunman

Minneapolis police are investigating after a man was shot to death outside a North Side gas station with a problematic history in the middle of the day.

The shooting occurred about 11:45 a.m. Monday outside Full Stop Gas & Food at 1818 Lowry Av. N., where a man was reportedly loitering outside when someone approached on foot and shot him.

Minneapolis police officers arrived to find the victim critically wounded. Emergency responders took the man to North Memorial Health Hospital in Robbinsdale, where he later died.

The victim’s identity has not been released, and police have announced no arrests as of Tuesday afternoon.

“Words were exchanged, and the second man pulled out a firearm” and opened fire, police said.

“This senseless act of gun violence in broad daylight is unacceptable and shocking,” Chief Brian O’Hara said in a statement.

The store appeared to remain open in the shooting’s aftermath.

This block in north Minneapolis’ Jordan neighborhood has earned a reputation for drug dealing, prostitution and, occasionally, gunfire in recent years — with neighbors singling out the Full Stop gas station on the corner as a longtime magnet for trouble.

Police calls to the business number in the hundreds since Jan. 1, records show, mainly for directed patrols, various disturbances and drug activity. But officers have also responded at least 15 times to reports of a person with a firearm, shots fired calls, assaults and robberies on the property this year.

In 2020, a teenager was killed and another person injured when a dispute between two groups escalated into gunfire. A few weeks earlier, a 48-year-old man died after being shot while sitting inside a car near N. Logan and Lowry avenues.

The previous year, 16-year-old Caleb Livingston suffered permanent paralysis and was left in a near-vegetative state after being shot in the head while on a quick detour at the Full Stop to fill his gas tank. The boy was in Minneapolis, visiting from Illinois, when a brief confrontation erupted near the pumps.

Livingston died three years later due to complications from his injuries. His mother, Jennifer LeMay, sued the estate of Daunte Wright, who was killed by a Brooklyn Center police officer in 2021, alleging that Wright shot her son, although he was never charged in the shooting. That lawsuit was dismissed last year.

Police urged anyone with information about Monday’s homicide to email policetips@minneapolismn.gov or contact Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS (8477) or CrimeStoppersMN.org.

There have been 69 homicides in the city so far this year, according to a Minnesota Star Tribune database. That compares with 61 at this time last year.