Minneapolis police search for suspects after triple shooting at homeless encampment

One man is dead and two were fighting for their lives Saturday as Minneapolis police searched for suspects following an early-morning triple shooting at a southside homeless encampment.

According to police, officers responded to reports of automatic gunfire at the encampment near E. 21st Street and 15th Avenue S. shortly before 5 a.m. They arrived in the Ventura Village neighborhood south of downtown to find three victims with gunshot wounds.

The men were given aid and taken to HCMC, where one died. Police Chief Brian O’Hara said the other two remained in critical condition. The identities of the men, who were homeless, were not immediately released.

Investigators said they believe that an altercation occurred after three people approached the camp. One of the victims had a BB gun that resembled a real pistol, but it was unclear if that was a factor in the shooting, they said.

“Once again, tragedy has occurred at a homeless encampment and all three of the injured are known to police,” O’Hara said at a news conference.

“Residents in the area have been very frustrated. This is an ongoing issue with encampments and all of the activity that’s associated with it. As soon as one encampment is cleared, another one pops up somewhere else and crime in the area immediately rises.”

Citing department data, O’Hara said that around 13% of all Third Precinct crime, and 19% of the precinct’s gun violence, happens within 500 feet of encampments. He said he believed that the camp where the shooting occurred appeared after officials had closed a larger encampment by a Franklin Avenue overpass.

Paula Williams, who has lived in the area since the late 1970s, said she often greets youth from the encampment and that none has made her feel threatened. But Williams said drug use and sex trafficking have become an issue.

“It’s just been whack-a-mole,” she said. “The police come daily or every other day. Somebody calls and they get chased away, and by the evening, they’re back.”

Williams added: “The city has a responsibility, and the county and the state. We all have a responsibility. We need people to take care of each other.”

Amelia Benjamin, a member of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, was sleeping in a tent two blocks from the encampment where the gunfire erupted. She said many in the homeless community treat each other like family.

But, she said, many also fall to opioid addiction and violence — she is fighting fentanyl addiction herself and working on sobriety to bring her daughter back into her life — and that city officials need to help.

“It’s sad because we’re all young fighting through this ... and it’s so hard to be out here like this. It just puts more stress ... we’re all [expletive] dying out here,” Benjamin said through tears. “We really need our government to do something for us. We can’t keep living life like this.”

After Benjamin spread tobacco and prayed for the victims of Saturday’s shootings, others living in the encampment cleaned the scene, picking up trash and clothes, and sweeping away leaves and blood. One person dropped to the curb, weeping.