In Minneapolis, 2 Mass Shootings on Same Street

Eight people were wounded, four critically, in a shooting at a homeless camp on private property in Minneapolis, police said. The shooting happened just hours after—and blocks away—from another shooting that left five injured near a transit station, the AP reports. Police learned of the shooting at the homeless encampment around 10pm Monday when an off-duty officer working at a nearby retail store was approached by people running from the camp and reporting gunfire, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara said at a news conference. Both mass shootings happened on East Lake Street less than 12 hours apart, reports CBS News.

Officers arriving at the scene found five people injured by gunfire, including a woman and two men with life-threatening injuries. Another man and a woman suffered what appeared to be non-life-threatening wounds, with each having injuries to their legs. All five were rushed to a hospital. Police later learned that three other people, including one with life-threatening injuries, walked, or were taken to hospitals before police arrived. In the shooting near a transit station around 11am Monday, five men were injured, including one who suffered life-threatening injuries, KARE 11 reports. It's not clear whether the shootings were linked.

• O'Hara said no arrests had been made in either shooting. "Unfortunately, here we are yet again in the aftermath of a mass shooting," O'Hara said. "This is not normal."
• The shootings come during a particularly violent summer for the Minneapolis area. That includes the assassination of Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband in their home, as well as the shooting of another state lawmaker and his wife the same day in June. A mass shooting at a Minneapolis church in late August killed two children and injured 21 others.

• The latest shooting happened at a homeless camp in a parking lot that has been at the center of a legal conflict between the owner of the property, Hamoudi Sabri, who opened it up to the homeless in July, and city officials who want it shut down. Sabri has refused to shut down the camp, and earlier this month, the city sued him to try to force the camp's closure. Sabri is facing about $15,000 in citations and fines related to the encampment.
• Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said in a news conference hours after the shooting that the city will be "clearing this encampment immediately after the crime scene has been investigated." "This is way worse than just a nuisance. This is a danger to the community," Frey said.
• Sabri responded with a statement criticizing city leaders, saying the city should provide grief and trauma counselors and an emergency response that would offer hotels and emergency shelter beds for the homeless and those affected by the violence. "Instead, the Mayor's answer is the same tired move we've seen for years: displacement," Sabri said. "Bulldoze people's tents, fence off their space, and call it leadership. But it isn't leadership. It's an illusion of control designed to make the problem less visible, not less deadly."