Two wounded in shooting at Crave in downtown Minneapolis

Two people were wounded in a shooting at a restaurant in downtown Minneapolis around bar-closing time early Saturday, Minneapolis police said.

Responding about 2 a.m. to a report of shots fired on the rooftop of Crave American Kitchen & Sushi Bar at 825 S. Hennepin Av., police found a man and a woman with noncritical gunshot wounds. Both were taken by ambulance to HCMC.

The restaurant has a rooftop dining and bar area that is open until 2 a.m.

"Officers arrived to a very chaotic scene as persons were fleeing the area," police spokesman John Elder said.

Police found the victims as they worked to evacuate the scene.

The shooter had fled before officers arrived.

Police interviewed people who were in the area of the shooting, and the Minneapolis crime lab collected evidence.

No one is in custody, and police are investigating.

At a news conference Saturday, Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo said downtown Minneapolis has experienced a slight uptick in violent crime this year, following a significant drop in 2018, which represented a 30-year low.

"One of the things we are seeing in a lot of gun violence incidents is it's not just one shooter and one victim, it's multiple shooters and multiple victims," Arradondo said.

Minneapolis police have seized more than 400 firearms so far in 2019, he said.

Last year, police seized more than 700 handguns, shotguns, rifles and other semi-automatic weapons, although those recoveries were down by more than a third from the previous decade.

Earlier this year he said he'd like to expand the department from 888 sworn officers to at least 1,000 as the city continues to grow.

Arradondo said he has submitted a budget proposal to city officials that would allow him to increase beat officers, investigators and community outreach officers.