A 17-year-old boy is dead after shots were fired into a Minneapolis home where he was on Sunday evening.
Police said officers responded to the shooting on the 2200 block of Ilion Avenue North around 6:26 p.m. They found the boy, who was suffering from an “apparent life-threatening gunshot wound.”
The officers provided him with medical aid before he was taken to the hospital, where he later died.
A neighbor told WCCO on Monday that they heard six or seven gunshots.
It’s not the first notable shooting in the area. On the same block four-and-a-half years ago, 9-year-old Trinity Ottoson-Smith was jumping on a trampoline at a birthday party when she was struck and killed by a stray bullet.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said police are still investigating the motive and said it is still unknown how many people were involved in the shooting, or if the boy, who didn’t live in the home, was even the intended target.
Police have interviewed a number of people who were there during the shooting, O’Hara said, while homicide investigators continue to comb through evidence.
Investigators were working with the boy before he died, police say
“What’s really so tragic about this is this teenager is someone that we knew,” said O’Hara.
Juvenile investigators had been working with the boy for months, O’Hara said, trying to steer him onto the right path, after he was involved in past crimes. He added that the investigators had been working to make contact with him and his mother the night of his death.
“It’s a tragedy, obviously, when this happens, but it’s especially tough when it’s someone that we knew was at risk, that we had been trying some specific outreach to try and help,” said O’Hara.
Anyone with information is asked to email Minneapolis police or leave a voicemail for them at 612-673-5845. Anonymous tips can be submitted to Crime Stoppers of Minnesota, or called in to them at 1-800-222-8477.
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