2 Dead, 1 Injured In Separate Incidents In St. Paul's Uppertown Neighborhood
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – St. Paul police are investigating two separate incidents Thursday morning that left one person injured and two people dead.
According to St. Paul police, officers were called to a home on the 200 block of Forbes Avenue at about 12:30 a.m. Two men were reported injured.
But police made an unplanned stop on West 7th Street when they saw a man on the sidewalk.
"They discovered that he had been shot multiple times," St. Paul Police Spokesman Steve Linders said.
Other police responded to the home on Forbes Avenue while those officers helped the shooting victim, who was eventually taken to Regions Hospital.
Two men were located in an upstairs apartment of the residence; both were pronounced dead on the scene. Police say these deaths mark the city's 15th and 16th homicides of 2015.
A Salvation Army child development center just a block away from the home was closed Thursday in light of the crimes.
Jim Sazevich is a historian who has lived in the Uppertown neighborhood for 30 years. He says it is one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city.
"Relatively safe neighborhood. Very progressive neighborhood with really wonderful people. Bright neighbors. Very, very low crime rate if you look at the statistics," Sazevich said. "We're about one of the safest neighborhoods in the community so we're about as shocked as everybody to wake up to this this morning."
St. Paul Police's homicide unit is working alongside the Ramsey County Medical Examiner to identify the men and determine how they died.
Linders says he believes there is no threat to the public.
"We have two very large, complex crime scenes and we have a puzzle that we're trying to put together," Linders said. "Whether or not these two cases are related, we don't know. They may be, they may not be."
The name of the shooting victim, who is in critical condition, has also not been released.