A man who was shot last week in downtown Minneapolis died from his injuries Thursday, according to Minneapolis police.
The victim, who police said was in his 20s, has not yet been publicly identified, and no arrests have been made.
The homicide is the city’s eighth of the year, down from 18 as of the same time last year, according to a Star Tribune database.
Police believe the man was shot near the intersection of 5th Avenue S. and 9th Avenue S. around 6:30 p.m. April 18. After the shooting, the victim drove a vehicle about a block and struck another vehicle along the way. Nobody else was injured in ether the shooting or the crash.
“Any loss of life is deeply troubling,” Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said in a statement. “While a decline in violent crime offers some encouragement, each new act of violence — each life lost — reminds us how much work remains.”
The homicide comes as Minneapolis has returned to pre-pandemic levels of gun violence through the first four months of the year. By this point in 2019, the city had recorded seven homicides, according to a Star Tribune database.
In early April, O’Hara announced the number of nonfatal shooting victims in the city had fallen to pre-pandemic levels as well.
A release from the police department attributed the drop in gun violence to a number of strategies, including focused enforcement in city neighborhoods most impacted by violent crime and toward “high-impact offenders,” along with collaborations with community groups and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
