Minneapolis ramps up police presence, erects fences following 2 mass shootings along Lake Street

Minneapolis boosted its police presence Wednesday at two locations on E. Lake Street in response to a pair of mass shootings that left 12 people injured while investigators continue to search for the gunmen responsible.

The ramp-up follows a pair of mass shootings about 12 hours apart Monday — one where five people were shot near Lake Street and Interstate 35W, and another where seven were hit to the east at a large homeless encampment near 28th Avenue S. on land owned by developer Hamoudi Sabri. The city cleared the encampment on Tuesday.

No arrests have been made in either shooting as of Wednesday afternoon, and no further updates on the investigation were provided by police. At a Tuesday afternoon news conference, Chief Brian O’Hara said police believed multiple shooters were involved in each incident, and investigators are following leads while also taking steps to prevent future violence along the Lake Street corridor.

O’Hara said at the news conference that “dozens and dozens of pieces of evidence have been recovered, videos have been recovered, and we are pursuing a number of leads.”

”In both cases, we are devoting every available resource, not only to hold those responsible accountable, but to do everything that we can to try and prevent future violence," he said. “Our investigators are following up on leads as we speak, talking with people in the community, reviewing dozens and dozens of hours of video and working with community members who have already provided us information.”

East Lake Street and the nearby area has been the site of three mass shootings in two weeks, the first happening Aug. 26 when a man fired a rifle at a crowd on Clinton Avenue just north of Lake Street, across the street from Cristo Rey Jesuit High School.

On Monday, a mass shooting happened on a walkway just off I-35W that has long been plagued by violence and open drug use.

After the shooting, the city put up a fence blocking off the walkway from just north of the transit center to the Midtown Greenway bike path. There was a squad car positioned at the south end of the fence on Wednesday.

A permanent fence will be put up by the Minnesota Department of Transportation later this week, according to Ally Peters, spokesperson for Mayor Jacob Frey.

O’Hara noted that there were two other shooting incidents at the same site in the past 28 days, and multiple robberies and reports of people with a gun.

About two miles east at a homeless encampment, a shooting at about 10 p.m. Monday left seven people injured and four with life-threatening injuries. Two of the victims remain “gravely injured” after they were shot in the head in separate tents, O’Hara said Tuesday.

On Tuesday morning, Drew Groves, who lived in the encampment, said he heard from others that the shooting happened after a disagreement between two groups. O’Hara said at the news conference that it followed a “narcotics dispute.”

“There’s been a lot of hostility the last couple days, a lot of fighting, and a lot of chaos and stuff,” she said.

O’Hara added at the news conference that 911 calls for service to the encampment have been “increasing steadily” since it formed.

By Wednesday morning, the site was fully cleared and the city had blocked off the edges of Sabri’s property with yellow police tape strung between garbage cans.

Three police cars were positioned around the site to prevent people from re-establishing the encampment.

The city of Minneapolis requested assistance from other law enforcement agencies for increased patrols of the area, including the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office, State Patrol and Metro Transit Police.

Frey said at the Tuesday news conference that the site was a crime scene not safe for re-entry, that there were needles “virtually everywhere,” and that it had to be cleared to prevent additional harm.