Nov. 24, 2006: Three arrested in shooting that killed Minneapolis teen

Police arrested three men early Thursday in connection with a shooting in northeast Minneapolis that left one dead and another injured on Wednesday afternoon.

Killed was 17-year-old Sohail Azizi, of Minneapolis, who died of a gunshot wound to the head, according to the Hennepin County medical examiner.

It was the city's 58th homicide this year.

The gunfire at the intersection of Polk Street and 23rd Avenue NE. was not random, homicide Lt. Lee Edwards said. When asked about a motive, he said that drugs was a "common denominator."

"Don't know exactly what the motive is, but drugs is definitely involved in this," he said.

Earlier reports said that before the shooting, officers were responding to a 911 call that a man was being assaulted by a group of people who fled.

Edwards said the victim who died "did not contribute to his own demise. He's a nice young man with family. He didn't deserve this fate."

Azizi said he helped bring his younger brother to the United States from Canada four years ago and had employed him in his store, Crescent Moon Bakery on Central Avenue in northeast Minneapolis.

The worst Sohail had done was smoke cigarettes - and he quit that four months ago, Meerwais Azizi said.

He described Sohail as a 17-year-old boy becoming a man. Sohail worked in the bakery every evening from 5 to 10 p.m. "The customers loved him," Meerwais Azizi said.

After bouncing around at a couple of high schools, Sohail was set to graduate this year from a high school in Brooklyn Park. Meerwais was planning to set Sohail up with another store, this one a pizza shop.

Sohail had just gotten a green card and was going to take his driver's license test this week.

Suspected weapons found

Both victims were inside a car when they were shot at about 2:20 p.m., authorities said earlier. Azizi was found in the passenger seat. The second victim was taken to Hennepin County Medical Center; he is expected to recover.

The three suspects, including a man believed to be the shooter, were arrested beginning about 1:30 a.m. Thursday. Two of them, a 26-year-old man and a 24-year-old man, were found at an apartment in Bloomington. The third suspect is 20 years old.

Handguns believed to be the weapons involved were recovered, Edwards said.

The shooting took place about three blocks from the police department's Second Precinct headquarters in the Windom Park neighborhood, an area that Edwards described as "typically a safe area."