Teen fatally shot at party in St. Paul's Highland Park neighborhood

A 17-year-old boy was fatally shot late Wednesday at a house party in St. Paul's Highland Park neighborhood, police and relatives said.

The boy, whom relatives identified as Tyshawn Hill, was found wounded in a house in the middle of the 2400 block of Youngman Avenue, according to police and scanner traffic.

He was pronounced dead at the scene, said police spokesman Sgt. Mike Ernster.

Ernster said that officers, responding to a flurry of 911 calls, found the victim about 9:45 p.m. inside the house, near Crosby Farm Regional Park.

He had been at a social gathering of more than a dozen people when he was shot, police said.

"We're trying to find out what factually led to this person's death and who was responsible," Ernster said Thursday.

Ernster wouldn't confirm whether police were looking for a man reported by several witnesses to be fleeing the house shortly after gunfire erupted, saying that investigators were still gathering information.

The man, whom several witnesses believe to be the suspect, was bleeding "profusely" from the arm, according to scanner traffic.

Officials said that police had been called to the house at least three times in the past four years, twice for a disorderly conduct complaint.

On Thursday, relatives recalled Hill, who was from Chicago but had recently moved to the Twin Cities to stay with relatives, as a vivacious young man who always looked out for his younger sister.

"That was his queen," said Hill's cousin, Carmelina Bennett, adding that his extended family in Illinois was struggling with the loss.

"We just want our cousin back," she said.