A man found fatally shot in a south Minneapolis alley early Wednesday is the latest victim in a recent surge in homicides in the city.
Officers were dispatched about 1:50 a.m. to the area of E. Lake Street and 17th Avenue S. on a report of gunshots heard about 20 minutes earlier, police said. The officers arrived and saw a man in his late 20s down in the alley with a gunshot wound, according to police.
“This man was left for dead in an alley,” Police Chief Brian O’Hara said in a statement. “We cannot, and will not, stand by and tolerate this kind of violence in our city.”
The man, who was declared dead at HCMC, has not been publicly identified, and no arrests have been announced.
The city has seen 11 killings in the past 2½ weeks, according to a Minnesota Star Tribune database. Of the 11, nine have occurred in a section of south Minneapolis running from Pillsbury Avenue on the west to Cedar Avenue on the east, and from Lake Street on the south to Franklin Avenue on the north.
The first occurred on April 27, but the tally took off when four people in a vehicle were fatally shot on April 29 in south Minneapolis.
The next afternoon, Tiago Antonio Gilbert, 34, of Minneapolis was shot to death elsewhere in south Minneapolis, in what city officials suspect was in retaliation for the previous night’s killings. Three men have been charged in Gilbert’s death.
There have been 21 homicides in Minneapolis so far this year. That compares with 22 homicides in the city at this time last year.
