2 dead after Brooklyn Park grocery store shooting

Article by: ANTHONY LONETREE , Star Tribune
Updated: April 8, 2011 - 11:55 PM

One of two people shot in the Festival Foods break room died Friday night, police said. A suspect who fled the scene in a vehicle later shot and killed himself near the Mississippi River at the University of Minnesota.

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People gathered at the scene of shooting at Festival Foods at 8535 Edinburgh Center Drive on Friday night in Brooklyn Park.

Photo: Jerry Holt, Star Tribune

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Two people were shot, one fatally, by a gunman who later turned his weapon on himself in a bloody drama that began Friday night in a Brooklyn Park grocery store and ended near the Mississippi River on the West Bank of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

At about 8:30 p.m., police received reports that two people had been shot in the break room of Festival Foods at 8535 Edinburgh Center Dr., according to Brooklyn Park Deputy Chief Craig Enevoldsen. Officers found two victims, whose identities and genders Enevoldsen would not reveal, with gunshot wounds in the break room. One was dead; the other was taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital; that victim's condition was not known late Friday, he said.

Enevoldsen said that the slain person, a store employee, had been in a previous relationship with the suspect. When the suspect came to the store to talk to that person, they went into the break room, where the shootings occurred. Enevoldsen said he believed that the second victim was also an employee of the store.

There were no witnesses to the actual shootings in the break room, but people in the main part of the store heard several gunshots, he said.

Police cordoned off the store and its parking lot, interviewed people in the store and ferried several others by bus to a nearby police station for interviews. At about 10:30 p.m., a police chaplain was ushered into the store.

Meanwhile, the suspect fled the scene in a vehicle and drove to Minneapolis, where he apparently took his own life, Enevoldsen said. Both the suspect and the slain person were in their early 20s, he said.

According to scanner reports, authorities tracked the suspect via cell phone GPS into Minneapolis, where he shot himself near West River Parkway and was found lying below the Washington Avenue Bridge.

Students watching the incident on campus said they saw police cars with lights flashing on both sides of the river below the Washington Avenue bridge. Most police vehicles appeared to have stopped on the West Bank, where several students said they also saw a helicopter hovering with a spotlight. Late Friday, police had closed West River Parkway directly beneath the Washington Avenue bridge, as well as the bridge's pedestrian crossing, said David Baker, a U freshman.

Staff writer Sarah Lemagie contributed to this report. Anthony Lonetree • 612-673-4109