ST PAUL, Minn. — Homicide investigators are busy looking for a suspect after a woman was fatally shot in the street on St. Paul's east side Thursday morning.
Police spokesman Steve Linders says squads were dispatched to the 800 block of Cook Ave. East near the intersection with Arcade around 3:30 a.m. Upon arrival they were flagged down by bystanders pointing to a woman laying in the street.
Officers called paramedics and immediately began lifesaving measures, but were unable to save the women. She was declared dead on the scene.
Linders says a K-9 team was called in hoping to track the suspect, but the effort turned out to be unsuccessful. He says the fatal shooting could be domestic-related, but adds that investigators won't know the motive for sure until the shooter is arrested.
Anyone who knows something about the fatal shooting or the person responsible is asked to call St. Paul Police at 651-266-5650. It is the city's 23rd homicide - last year at this time there were 15.
It was a busy night in St. Paul as officers responded to three separate shootings in a span of three-and-a-half hours. A woman was shot at 12:45 a.m., and a man was shot at 12:55 a.m. Both of those victims survived.
Linders told reporters that the department is working hard to turn back the rising tide of violence, but it is becoming a monumental task. Reports of shots fired are up 130% from the same time period last year and 144 people have been struck by bullets, an increase over the 86 shot by September of 2019.
"We've seen a concerning increase in gun violence in the city, it's something we're dealing with, something we're trying to get ahead of," Linder said wearily. "We take this personally... we're not the police department, we're the community. A lot of our officers live in the city, a lot of them grew up here."
