SOUTH ST. PAUL, Minn- Police in South St. Paul arrested three suspects and are still searching for additional suspects following a Monday night shooting that left two people injured.
Police found one person had been struck by a vehicle and had minor injuries after arriving at the intersection of Holland and Warner Avenues, reports the Pioneer Press. The call came in at about 8 p.m. on Monday night, and suspects had left the area before officers arrived.
Officers were called back to the scene roughly an hour later with reports of shots fired. A man and woman on the scene both had non-life threatening gunshot wounds, and both were taken to a local hospital, reports the Pioneer Press.
An officer saw the suspect vehicle leaving the area and stopped it a short way from the scene. The driver was arrested there, but two passengers fled on foot and were later found in a wooded area where they were arrested. The Pioneer Press reports that police are still looking for additional suspects according to South St. Paul Police Chief Bill Messerich.
Erik Dontez Poe, Juan Carlos Rojas, and Tyrone Lamar Farrow were booked into Dakota County jail on suspicion of drive-by shooting, first degree assault, discharging a weapon in a municipality, and disorderly conduct according to the Pioneer Press.
For the nearby city of St. Paul, data released by its police department shows that the more serious types of crime have seen a decrease in total occurrences over the past few years. Calls to police regarding discharges of deadly firearms have been trending upwards however.
From 2007 to 2014 weapon discharges calls never topped 750 occurrences in a year, hitting a low of 505 incidents in 2010. The numbers have jumped sharply in recent years however, jumping from 579 in 2014, to 862 in 2015, and 1,092 occurrences in 2016.