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City leaders react to toddler's shooting death, growing gun violence

St. Paul Police say a 2-year-old boy was shot in the head Wednesday inside an apartment.

ST PAUL, Minn. — Police are investigating a 2-year-old boy's death and say they are waiting on a ruling from the medical examiner. 

If his death is a confirmed homicide, police say it would be the 34th in the city this year - tying the most ever set back in 1992.  

The boy was shot Wednesday at an apartment building off of Rice Street. Medics rendered aid, but the boy died in an ambulance about eight minutes after the initial call. 

"As you can imagine these are really tough calls for our officers, especially this time of year," said St. Paul Police Spokesman Steve Linders.

Police say there have been a record 220 shootings in the city this year and that the suspects are more young people carrying guns. They've also recovered 4,300 shell casings this year and police say that accounts to someone pulling a trigger 12 times a day. Councilman Dai Thao oversees the area where the little boy died and condemned the violence.

"We can take a real effort to tell people who want to cause violence, that if you shoot your gun in St. Paul, we're going to find you," said Councilman Thao. "We don't want that sort of activity in our city."

Police wouldn't say what they think is driving the trend, but some business owners are so fed-up they're planning to re-locate or are arming themselves at work. 

Councilman Thao says job creation is key to reducing violence.

"We're taking their time away from doing other activity and paying them on a job site to do something to prepare them for the future," said Thao.

Anti-violence activist Dora Jones-Robinson says the growing violence is partly due to pressure. 

"We got COVID, being quarantined, the pandemic, it's just too much," said Jones-Robinson who's the founder of the group Guns Down St. Paul. She wants the city to invest in more recreation centers that she says provide mentorship programs, physical activities and a place of refuge for young people. 

"We had so many options when I was coming up a youth and now all of those options have disappeared and now you have this rippling effect of gun violence, drugs and alcohol," said Jones-Robinson, who hopes city leaders reach out to advocates like her to ask what they need to really make a difference.

"Unless you're down in the streets, hands on, working with the people, you're not really going to know what's going on," she said.

In the case of the little boy, police say it's unclear who fired the gun and it's possible there were other people inside the apartment when the shooting happened.

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