Teen wounded Monday afternoon in downtown Minneapolis shooting

An 18-year-old man was arrested after a shooting Monday afternoon in downtown Minneapolis wounded a 14-year-old boy.

According to a statement from police, officers heard gunfire about 4:22 p.m. and found evidence of a shooting in a parking lot near N. 5th Street and Hennepin Avenue. A few minutes later, they arrested the suspect in an alley behind the police department’s First Precinct station, 19 N. 4th St., and recovered a gun.

A couple minutes after that, Metro Transit police identified the 14-year-old victim at N. 8th Street and Hennepin Avenue, where he had run and perhaps attempted to board a bus. He was taken to HCMC with a wound that was apparently not life-threatening.

Police investigators were working to establish what led up to the shooting. The suspect was booked into the Hennepin County Jail for the shooting and unrelated warrants.

“This is yet another clear example of the very real problem of the gun violence we have in this city,” Police Chief Brian O’Hara said in the statement. “MPD will continue its focused efforts to root out this problem that has such tragic results.”

As of Wednesday, Minneapolis police reported 275 victims of shootings in 2024. That remains high compared to pre-pandemic years, but is down 41% from 2021.

Gun violence swelled in Minneapolis and across the nation in 2020 and 2021 but has slowed since. Criminologists have attributed the rise to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, fallout from the police murder of George Floyd and increased gun carrying.

In 2022, firearm injuries became the leading cause of death among children and teens between ages 1 and 19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.