Severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings issued for Twin Cities metro area

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


Samantha Burnette, the 16-year-old Minnetonka High School junior shot and killed in a St. Paul alley Sunday morning, was an avid skateboarder, dreamed of being an attorney and hoped to be the first of her siblings to graduate from high school.

Burnette's older sister, Brittany Rock of St. Paul, said she hoped her sister's killers would be held accountable for cutting far too short a promising life. 


"She didn't follow in my footsteps. She was doing real good," Rock said. "Me and my brother, we never graduated high school and she was on her way to graduating. And she can't even do that now."

St. Paul Police Department spokesperson Steve Linders said two people have been arrested in connection with Burnette's death, and police continue to interview witnesses.

At about 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning, police officers responded to reports of gunshots and found two injured females near the intersection of Walsh Street and Sims Avenue.

Burnette had gone to visit her sister in St. Paul for the weekend when they were the victims of what Rock says was a robbery in a car that ended in gunfire.

Rock said she and her sister, along with two other girls, were in a car on Sunday morning when they turned in an alley on St. Paul's East Side. 

The incident was a set up for a robbery, Rock said.

"One of the girls I was with set us up," Rock said. "She was just driving." 

Two men approached the car as the woman drove down an alley, Rock said. 

One of the men got in the front seat and took Rock's phone at gunpoint, she said. Rock said she tried to get out of the car and was hit in the head by one of the men as she got out. 

"I turned my back, I was getting ready to run, and I was just waiting to feel a bullet," she said.

Rock said she heard a gunshot and then saw her sister lying on the ground, pushed out of the car that drove off. She went to her sister's side. 

"She couldn't speak. She just looked at me. Her body tightened up and she stopped breathing," Rock said.


Burnette was born in Detroit Lakes, Rock said, and they were both raised by their grandmother in Hopkins, and Burnette later in Minnetonka. Rock said she and her sister are enrolled members of the White Earth Band. 


Minnetonka High School Principal Jeff Erickson urged students upset by Burnette's death to talk to teachers or counselors.

"Samantha was a very positive person and filled our halls with such great positivity," Erickson said. "From everyone who described her, she was a very loyal friend."

Erickson said he was in disbelief when he heard the news that the school had lost another student, just a few days after 

Scott Berzins was hit by a car and killed

 while crossing Highway 7 last Wednesday.

"I talked with students this morning and there is just this sense of confusion," Erickson said. "To lose two teens in a week in unrelated matters makes no sense."

Rock said her sister had asked to spend time with her, since they were together regularly at home, but that they didn't get time to spend time together otherwise.


On Facebook, Rock said she blamed herself for what had happened and that she held Burnette until her last breath, pleading with her to hang on. Rock posted that her sister appeared to have been shot in the head. She posted a photo of Burnette and her daughter, Burnette's niece, as her profile picture in her sister's memory.

The shooting is the 14th slaying in St. Paul this year. The two people arrested have not yet been charged and police haven't released any further details of the crime.

Police ask that anyone with information about this case call the St. Paul Police Department Homicide Unit at (651) 266-5650.

Crime, Law and Justice

Shows

Morning Edition

Tim Nelson

Author

Hannah Weikel

The victim's older sister said the incident was a set up for a robbery that turned deadly early Sunday in a St. Paul alley.

Two arrested in shooting of Minnetonka High School student

Go Deeper.

Like this?