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Mpls. Restaurant Owner Speaks Out After Triple Shooting

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- The neon sign at Lotus Uptown glows in pink, "I will love you pho-ever," which is the perfect way to describe the food Yoom Nguyen and his family serve up every day.

"We treat everybody the same. It doesn't matter where you live or where you come from or what you just got done doing, you walk through that door, we treat you with love and respect," said Nguyen.

Immigrating to the United States from Vietnam, Nguyen believes this successful restaurant is the embodiment of his American dream.

On Friday night, that dream turned into something much different.

The NBA Finals game had just wrapped up and the restaurant was packed with people, when people sitting on the patio heard gun shots from the parking lot.

"We just talked about the American dream, that's a business owner's nightmare," said Nguyen.

In all, three people were hurt in the shooting. Investigators with the Minneapolis Police Department believe two of them were simply innocent bystanders and were not the intended targets of the gunfire.

Nguyen is still searching for answers himself. He does not know if the shooting was sparked by a fight over the game or something else.

"We looked on our security cameras and we tried to figure out what was going on and we can't find anything that escalated," said Nguyen.

On top of the security cameras, four security guards were working at the restaurant when this all happened.

"We always do our part to protect our customers and to protect our neighborhood and unfortunately, that happened," said Nguyen.

The lotus is a flower that will only grow out of the mud and going forward, Nguyen is confident the restaurant will continue to bloom after facing an outburst of violence.

Police tell WCCO-TV none of the three victims were critically hurt. Two of them have been released from HCMC.

Minneapolis police are still searching for the person responsible for the gunfire, and say they have adjusted their staffing to make sure the Uptown neighborhood is protected Saturday night.

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