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MPD: 2 Shot In Downtown Minneapolis Melee

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- A street fight involving dozens of people ended with two people shot early Saturday morning in the popular Warehouse District of downtown Minneapolis.

Police responded to reports of more than 30 people fighting on the 400 block of Third Avenue North around 2 o' clock in the morning.

As people in the crowd ran away, officers found one man who had been shot in the ankle.

Another victim shot in the arm later showed up at the hospital.

After six people were hurt in one night in shootings downtown last month, the mayor of Minneapolis Betsy Hodges said she is "sick of it," in reference to gun violence in Minneapolis.

Minneapolis Downtown Council President Steve Cramer works with the city of Minneapolis, law enforcement and bar and restaurant owners to think of safer alternatives around 2 a.m. when bars must close.

"It is discouraging when we hear about these incidents, we hear about them more than we would like," Cramer said.

Cramer said downtown stakeholders work to think about how people should get in and out of the Warehouse District most safely, how venues and their staff are trained and even how to train some off-duty police officers contracted to work for different venue managers.

Cramer said one of the biggest challenges is that much of the violence is happening close to the 1st Police Precinct downtown and that heavy police presence does not seem to deter those who look to solve conflicts through gun violence.

"But, we also have to remember that it's a really small percentage of people that are acting in this way," Cramer said. "Hopefully they'll be caught."

After last month's shootings in downtown, Hodges introduced the Group Violence Intervention initiative to address the small number of repeat offenders she believes are driving most of the violence.

The mayor also said 60 new police officers are in training and will be on the streets by year's end.

"We've identified a number of key strategies and we are working hard to implement those," Cramer said.

Cramer said even though there is more work to do, the downtown streets and businesses are safe.

"The number of more serious crimes that have occurred downtown this year is less than the year before and less than the year before that," Cramer said.

Police have interviewed some witnesses from the early morning Saturday shooting but are still looking for helpful information.

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