ST. PAUL, MINN. — Three people are dead after a shooting Monday afternoon in St. Paul’s Highland Park neighborhood, and police say a person of interest is now in custody.
Victims Found in Leasing Office
Officers responded around 4:10 p.m. Monday to the 1500 block of St. Paul Avenue after multiple 911 calls reported gunfire.
When they arrived, they found three adults dead inside the leasing office of an apartment complex. Police have not yet confirmed whether any of the victims lived or worked in the building, or whether they had any relationship with a suspect.
St. Paul Police Chief Axel Henry addressed the shooting during a Monday evening news conference, calling it a devastating moment for the community and stressing that such violence would not be tolerated.
Officers had also indicated that one of the victims may have worked at the complex’s leasing office, though that detail had not been officially confirmed.
The area around the shooting was shut down for hours. St. Paul Avenue was closed to vehicle traffic between West 7th and Davern streets, and crime scene tape stretched across a large perimeter along the block. The apartment complex itself was evacuated shortly after the shooting occurred.
Search Effort and Custody Update
Later Monday evening, officers were seen entering a separate apartment building nearby on the 1300 block of St. Paul Avenue. Police carried long guns and used a speaker system to call for someone to come out of a unit, and less-lethal rounds were fired through a second-story window during the operation. No suspect was found at that location.
By around 10 p.m., the St. Paul Police Department announced that a person of interest connected to the shooting had been taken into custody. Authorities said further details would be released the following day and that there were no additional updates at that time.
Nearby residents described the scene as unsettling for a typically quiet part of the city. Some said they left home briefly for errands only to return and find streets blocked off and access to their buildings restricted.
The shooting adds to a violent stretch of recent days in the Twin Cities. It came just two days after a fatal shooting in St. Paul’s Frogtown neighborhood left one man dead and two others injured, and two days after a pair of mass shootings in Minneapolis left one person dead and more than a dozen injured.
This remains an active and developing investigation.
