Northern Minnesota is under a new alert until Friday at 7 p.m.

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all. 

Turn Up Your Support

St. Paul police say the suspect in an apparently random homicide in the city’s Lowertown neighborhood on Wednesday evening was fatally shot by police early Thursday as officers tried to arrest him southwest of the Twin Cities. 

Police said the suspect was armed and that no officers were injured in the shooting in Belle Plaine. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is investigating. The name of the person who died Thursday — and the person he’s suspected of killing the previous day — have not been released.

At a news conference Thursday, St. Paul Police Chief Axel Henry said that Wednesday’s fatal shooting of a woman working on an art project outside the Lowertown Lofts Artists Cooperative on Kellogg Boulevard was caught on surveillance video, and Henry called it “one of the most cold-blooded things I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“The video images that we have show that the victim was on her knees, working on an art project in the street, about as vulnerable as a person could be,” when she was shot, Henry said. 

He said there’s no evidence of any prior connection between the victim and the suspect and that it’s not clear why the suspect was in St. Paul. He called the circumstances of the shooting “confusing.”

Following the shooting just after 5 p.m. Wednesday, investigators used witness reports and video to identify a suspect vehicle that was located in Belle Plaine. Henry said that St. Paul and Belle Plaine officers monitored that home overnight while creating a plan to take the suspect into custody.

“At approximately 6:30 this morning, prior to us even making any contact with the address, the person that we suspected of this crime exited that house, and our officers approached them. That person was armed with a handgun, and this resulted in an officer-involved shooting,” Henry said at Thursday’s news conference.

That person, who police said lived in Belle Plaine, was airlifted to a Minneapolis hospital, where he later died from his injuries.

Authorities did not say whether the suspect fired their handgun, or if there were other circumstances that led officers to open fire. The officers involved are on standard administrative leave.

 after Wednesday’s shooting that the victim was one of its members and that she was shot and killed while working on an art project outside the building.

“Our community is in shock and grief as we grapple with the unimaginable,” the cooperative said in its statement.

State Rep. María Isa Pérez-Vega, who represents downtown St. Paul, said she was near the scene of the shooting when it happened.

“I was in the neighborhood with other community members and my body froze in shock as we were just about to park and heard gunshots nearby,” she wrote in a statement Thursday. “I am deeply saddened and disturbed by the tragic loss of life due to gun violence in our Lowertown community yesterday. My heart goes out to the victim’s family and friends during this incredibly difficult time.”

Speaking alongside the police chief at Thursday’s news conference, St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter said St. Paul is “a community in mourning, to have lost a member of our community who was in the act of beautifying our community … all she was trying to do is give us an even more beautiful and enjoyable and peaceful community.”

“No one hopes for the type of ending that we experienced this morning, and we know that the family and friends of the suspect are in trauma today as well. So it’s a heartbreaking end all around,” Carter said.

Anna Haecherl

Author

Andrew Krueger

Peter Cox

Sarah Thamer

St. Paul police say the suspect in an apparently random homicide in the city’s Lowertown neighborhood on Wednesday evening was fatally shot by police early Thursday as officers tried to arrest him southwest of the Twin Cities. 


Peter Cox | MPR News

Sarah Thamer | MPR News

A police car with its lights on blocks and alley

Police fatally shoot suspect in ‘cold-blooded’ killing of artist in St. Paul’s Lowertown

Go Deeper.

Like this?