St. Paul officer, suspect wound each other in shooting near busy corner, police say

A St. Paul officer was shot in the leg and returned fire, police said, critically wounding a suspect on Thursday afternoon near a busy intersection.

The officer suffered non-life-threatening injuries, the St. Paul Police Department said in a prepared account of the incident released a few hours later. The other individual, who the department said was suspected of violating a protection order, sustained life-threatening injuries.

The suspect remained at Regions Hospital on Thursday night, Sgt. Mike Ernster said at a news briefing. No further information about the suspect's condition was immediately available. The officer was treated at Regions and released Thursday night.

According to police, just after 2 p.m. officers were called to the area of Marshall and Cretin avenues in response to a 911 caller who said she had an order for protection against a man who was following her as she drove in the area.

"She reported the man was intentionally driving his vehicle into hers, was armed with a handgun and had broken a window out of her vehicle," the department's account said.

A responding officer confronted the man, and the suspect fired, striking the officer in the lower leg, the department said. The officer returned fire, critically injuring the suspect. Medics were called and began providing first aid to the injured suspect, the police account said.

St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter and Police Chief Axel Henry also spoke at the news briefing. The department said the officer was wearing an activated body camera.

Cara Corey, who was inside her home across the street from the incident, said she heard "a bunch" of gunshots before she went outside to look.

Corey said she saw an officer limping in the middle of the road. She also heard a woman crying and yelling about a man who was shot at the scene.

"She just wailed for like half an hour," Corey said. "She kept saying, 'They shot him in the head,' 'What am I going to tell my kids?' and things like that."

Moments after a call went out of "officer shot" over dispatch audio, all available squads were ordered to Marshall and Cretin.

In response, more than a dozen marked and unmarked St. Paul police squads rushed past traffic on westbound Interstate 94 toward the scene of the shooting.

Corey said she noticed the officer who had been limping was gone after she briefly went inside her home. A video taken by Corey shows an officer performing CPR on the man in the street with other officers standing nearby. She said she later saw him being loaded onto a gurney.

Serake Alema, who works at the Black Coffee and Waffle Bar, said he heard the shots before seeing police cars arrive.

"I had looked down and then looked up and saw about 10 cop cars were here," Alema said.

Both roads were closed off while police investigated. A large number of neighbors and college students from the nearby University of St. Thomas were milling around in the aftermath but said they didn't see what happened.

The state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension will investigate the incident.

Return to startribune.com for updates to this developing story.

Staff writers Kyeland Jackson, Paul Walsh and Greta Kaul contributed to this report.