Another shooting at a Minneapolis encampment leaves 2 dead
MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - Two people are dead after a shooting at a Minneapolis encampment on Sunday – the second deadly shooting at an encampment this weekend.
What we know
Minneapolis police responded to the shooting around 2:20 p.m. on Sunday along Snelling Avenue just east of Hiawatha Avenue.
At the scene, officers say they found three victims shot at the encampment: two men and one woman. The men were both pronounced dead at the scene while the woman was rushed to the hospital with critical injuries, police say.
Police detained three people but say all three were later determined to not be involved in the shooting.
Context
Sunday's shooting came a day after another triple shooting at another homeless encampment in Minneapolis on Saturday morning.
Police responded around 4:45 a.m. to a report of a shooting at an encampment near 21st Street East and 15th Avenue South – about 3.5 miles north of the Snelling shooting off Hiawatha.
At the scene, officers found three men who had been shot. One of the men later died from his injuries at the hospital.
Just last month, Minneapolis dealt with another string of deadly encampment shootings that left two men dead. Joshua Anthony Jones was arrested and charged with murder in that case. Police said he was involved in all three shootings. Investigators said Jones is connected to the Native Mob.
What are they saying?
Both Chief Brian O'Hara and Mayor Jacob Frey responded Sunday evening to the violence at encampments.
"We know as soon as these encampments move in, we have a significant increase in crime," said O'Hara.
"It’s about fentanyl," added Mayor Frey. "It is about a drug that takes hold of your body and your mind like nothing that we’ve ever seen before."
They say that questions over property lines often make it difficult to get rid of tents, and they often face pushback from other elected officials.
"We’ve had council members and activists try to prevent these homeless encampments from being closed," the mayor explained.
"You can address these camps, and you can, you know, eliminate them, and you’re not doing it," said Nancy Ford, a citizen who spoke with FOX 9 on Sunday.
Ford says she's sick of seeing homeless encampments pop up and watching the violence that follows.
"The people that wind up getting shot in these camps are somebody’s children, somebody’s parents, you know, somebody’s good friend," she added.