A person died Friday evening after being shot while on board a Green Line train in St. Paul, according to Metro Transit police.
One dead after shooting on Green Line train in St. Paul
No suspects had been arrested as of Saturday, authorities said.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
December 1, 2024 at 2:23AM
Officers responded about 8:30 p.m. Friday to a report of the shooting on a westbound Green Line train as it approached the Hamline Avenue Station. They found “a male subject” with gunshot wounds, who was taken to a hospital where he died.
No further updates were available as of late Saturday afternoon, when Metro Transit issued a statement saying the investigation was active and ongoing.
“While incidents like this are rare, this fatality underscores the importance of acting with urgency to improve public safety on transit, which is our highest priority,” the agency said in a statement.
The victim’s name and age were not released. No one else was injured in the shooting, and no one had been arrested. Metro Transit police were leading the investigation with help from the St. Paul police and the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
Data presented to the Met Council in Nov. 6 reported an 8.4% decline in total reported crime in the first three quarters of 2024 compared with the same period last year, according to Metro Transit. The agency said the most serious crimes, including homicide, were down 14.5% in that same time span.
Friday’s shooting was the second in nine days on the Green Line in St. Paul. On the night of Nov. 21, a woman was shot in the leg while on the train and taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
A shooting on the Green Line train in St. Paul in 2019 wounded one teen, and earlier this year a robbery attempt on the Green Line in St. Paul left a passenger shot and wounded.
There have been close to a dozen shootings on Metro Transit buses since 2001, resulting in a total of a dozen people wounded and four dead. In most cases, the shootings began with fights among juveniles and were prompted by personal disputes.
Since 2017, five people have been killed and three wounded in shootings at light-rail stations in Minneapolis and St. Paul, including a double homicide at St. Paul’s Central Station in 2022 and a shooting in May that left one man dead at the Dale Street Station.
James Allen Ameer Smith told authorities he “hates driving” and “all it has caused me is problems.”
