3 dead, 3 critically hurt in weekend shootings inside Minneapolis homeless encampments
MINNEAPOLIS — Minneapolis police say no arrests have been made in connection to two separate triple shootings this weekend at homeless encampments in the city, which left a total of three people dead and three injured.
The first deadly shooting happened Saturday at about 4:42 a.m. off East 21st Street and 15th Avenue South, about a block southwest of the intersection of East Franklin and Bloomington avenues in the Ventura Village neighborhood.
Police say three men were shot and were all transported to Hennepin Healthcare for treatment, where one of the victims died. The survivors suffered life-threatening injuries.
In a press conference on Saturday, Police Chief Brian O'Hara says witnesses reported three suspects fleeing the area on foot after the shooting.
The next deadly shooting happened on Saturday afternoon about 3.5 miles southeast, in a small encampment next to railroad tracks near Snelling Avenue and East 44th Street in the Hiawatha neighborhood.
Police say two men and a woman were shot, with the men pronounced dead at the scene. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Office identified the men on Monday as 38-year-old Christopher Martell Washington of Fridley, and 32-year-old Louis Mitchell Lemons Jr. of Brooklyn Center. The woman was hospitalized in critical condition.
O'Hara says three men were detained at the encampment but were eventually "cleared and released." He says investigators are still determining whether the two attacks are connected.
Police are asking anyone with information on these shootings to submit an anonymous tip online to Crime Stoppers or call 1-800-222-TIPS (8477).
The encampment conundrum
Police say nearly a quarter of all shootings in the 3rd Precinct, where Saturday's shooting happened, occurred within 500 feet of an encampment.
Neighbors near that encampment told WCCO police had recently cleared it a couple of times. O'Hara told the press following Saturday's shooting that whenever the city clears an encampment, "another one pops up somewhere else and crime in the area immediately rises."
The correlation is at odds with a study published earlier this month by the University of Colorado, which found negligible changes in crime statistics following an encampment's removal.
In September, Mayor Jacob Frey called for accelerating encampment closures, a tactic that puts him at odds with several Minneapolis City Council members who say he's ignoring the systemic factors that foster homelessness.
Frey blames the scourge of fentanyl as a major factor fueling encampments, and he's chastised organizations and individuals for donating sleeping bags, tents and other survival items.
"We're listening to our constituents. We're listening to the experiences that they've had day in and day out, and we're also recognizing that the compassionate approach for people at these encampments is to not let them slowly kill themselves with a needle in their arms," Frey said.
Naomi Wilson with the Sanctuary Supply Depot, which donates survival kits to people experiencing homelessness, told WCCO last month that encampments provide safety and community.
"If they're not in encampments, it's easier for them to get picked off by traffickers, it's easier for them to be targeted by serial killers. That's not an exaggeration," Wilson said.
Frey says the city's Homeless Response Team is working to help unhoused residents expelled from encampments find alternate shelter as well as addiction and social services.
