Three fatally shot and three injured in Minneapolis homeless camps over two days

Three people were shot and killed at homeless encampments in Minneapolis over the weekend and three others were injured, Minneapolis police said.

On Sunday afternoon, two men were killed and a woman was injured in a shooting at an encampment on the 4400 block of Snelling and Hiawatha avenues, according to a news release from the Minnesota Police Department.

Early Saturday morning, a man was fatally shot and two men were injured at an encampment near E. 21st Street and 15th Avenue S., Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said.

According to the release, at approximately 2:21 p.m. Sunday, officers from the 3rd Precinct, responding to a shooting at the small encampment on Hiawatha Avenue, found two men and a woman injured by gunfire. The two men died on the spot. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office will identify the victims.

Three adult males were initially detained but were acquitted and released. According to the press release, police have not ruled out that the shootings on Sunday afternoon and Saturday morning are related.

O’Hara provided the following details about Saturday’s shooting, which occurred about 3 1/2 miles north of Sunday’s episode:

Shortly before 5 a.m., officers were called to the homeless encampment for reports of a shooting. Officers found that three men had been shot. One man was “lifeless,” O’Hara said. Officers performed CPR on all three men until they were taken to the hospital, he said.

One man died. The other two were in critical condition with life-threatening injuries, he said.

Early information indicates that between 4:30 a.m. and 4:45 a.m. three people approached the encampment and the shooting occurred, O’Hara said. He noted that one of the victims had a small BB gun that looked like a real gun, but investigators aren’t sure what role that played in the shooting.

O’Hara confirmed that a 911 caller reported sounds of automatic gunfire at the shooting scene.

He said the encampment has been an ongoing problem for area residents and came about after a much larger encampment near Franklin Avenue near the underpass was dismantled.

“There’s something about these encampments that drives the crime around them,” he said. “That’s exactly what the data shows.”

O’Hara said 13% of all crime in the 3rd Precinct occurs within 500 feet of an encampment and 19% of all gun violence occurs within 500 feet of an encampment.

“We know that 23% of all shooting victims this year were within 500 feet of an encampment,” he said, later adding that encampments were not “humane” places for people to stay.

Last month, two men were killed in shootings at encampments.