A nine-year-old Minneapolis girl is in the hospital after she was struck by gunfire over the weekend, making her the second child to be shot in the city in under a month.
The girl was shot in the head while she played with friends on a trampoline around 8:30 p.m. Saturday on the 2200 block of Ilion Avenue North. According to Minneapolis police spokesperson John Elder, someone in a red, four-door Ford fired at the house where the girl was playing, KARE 11 reported.
Crime Watch Minneapolis reported that someone from the house ran outside and returned fire. Police transported the girl to North Memorial Hospital where she was in “very critical condition” as of Sunday.
This was just a few hours after a woman suffered multiple gunshot wounds on the 5700 block of 34th Avenue South. She was also in critical condition as of Sunday, police said.
In total, six people were injured in four different shootings from Saturday night to Sunday morning across Minneapolis, including three people who were shot on the 1700 block of East Lake Street shortly after midnight Sunday, according to the Pioneer Press.
Later that morning, around 3:30 a.m., police were called to a report at Girard Avenue and Lowry Avenue North where a man with a gunshot wound was lying on the ground. Elder said the man’s injuries were not life-threatening during a media availability Sunday.
Multiple police officers were injured throughout the night while responding to calls. In one case, officers were maced by someone with a “party can” of pepper spray when responding to a stabbing around 2:15 a.m. outside the Pourhouse on Hennepin Avenue, according to Crime Watch Minneapolis.
Two officers were taken to the hospital about an hour earlier when a group of street racers threw rocks at the first responders.
Still reeling from Saturday night’s violence, the city then recorded its 27th homicide of the year early Monday morning.
One resident of north Minneapolis has captured the violence in his neighborhood on video. The videos, provided to Alpha News, show three different incidents of shots fired between Friday and Sunday.
The resident, who asked to remain anonymous, told Alpha News that at least two rounds have struck his home.
“We’ve been in the house six or seven years now, and to be honest, this spring leading up to the shots last weekend has been the worst we’ve seen. Before moving here we lived four or five years a handful of blocks west of Lyndale and it was generally quiet down there at that time. I’m not looking forward to summer,” he said.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called a press conference Monday afternoon with several city leaders to discuss their plan to restore safety to the streets. Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo pleaded with judges to stop releasing violent offenders and revealed that his department is now down roughly a third of its officers.
Chief Medaria Arradondo pleaded with judges to stop releasing violent offenders at a press conference today following a violent weekend in Minneapolis. pic.twitter.com/FyPlumTIcF
— Alpha News (@AlphaNewsMN) May 17, 2021
“We’re here because we can’t take it anymore. We’re here because we’re standing and we’re saying the rhetoric around defund has gotten us to where we are today,” said resident Sondra Samuels. “We have to cut the games out because our babies are dying.”
Anthony Gockowski
Anthony Gockowski is Editor-in-Chief of Alpha News. He previously worked as an editor for The Minnesota Sun and Campus Reform, and wrote for the Daily Caller.
