Seven people wounded by gunfire at encampment in south Minneapolis
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The Minneapolis Police Department will be receiving additional law enforcement and investigative support from the state, following two mass shootings in south Minneapolis that left a total of 12 people injured in less than a day.
A shooting Monday night at an encampment in south Minneapolis injured seven people — including three who suffered life-threatening gunshot wounds.
The gunfire in the Longfellow neighborhood, near the corner of Lake Street and South 28th Avenue, was the second mass shooting in the city in less than a day. Five people were injured by gunfire Monday morning on Lake Street, about 2 miles west of Monday night’s gunfire, including one who remains in critical condition.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said at a press conference Monday afternoon that police do not believe the two shootings were related, though it’s not entirely ruled out. He said it seems the first shooting was related to a quarrel that escalated to gunfire. The second, he said, appeared to be related to a narcotics dispute. O’Hara said no arrests have been made in either case.
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O’Hara said the second shooting happened at about 10 p.m. Police originally reported eight people had been injured but later said one of the victims had been counted twice.
Officers found multiple shell casings in the encampment and O’Hara said there were indications that at least two people fired guns. While police were at the scene, one of the tents caught fire. O’Hara said it was not clear how the fire started.
“The people of Minneapolis deserve peace and safety — all residents of the city deserve that, on their streets and in their neighborhoods and in their homes,” O’Hara said at a news conference. “I know it’s been a lot of violence lately, and we just want our community to know that we are not going to give up, and that we will continue to fight so that every person in this city can be safe.”
The encampment where Monday night’s shooting happened had already been the subject of fines and legal action by the city of Minneapolis.
The owner of the property, Hamoudi Sabri, has been allowing people to stay there, saying it provides a “hub” for people in need of assistance, and is a better option than having unhoused people being constantly on the move from place to place. He’s said if people come back after it was cleared, he will allow them to stay.
A hearing is being held Wednesday over a lawsuit against Sabri. The city hopes to receive a temporary restraining order to block Sabri from allowing another encampment to form as soon as Tuesday.
Speaking at the scene of Monday night’s shooting, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said he had not spoken to Sabri following the gunfire — but said that “as soon as this crime scene has been investigated, we’re shutting this thing down. If he wants to sue us, he can. If he wants to take this up in court, that is certainly his prerogative. But this is not safe. This is a danger to the community.”
City workers started dismantling the encampment on Tuesday morning. In a statement Tuesday, Frey said that “making encampments more ‘permanent’ is not harm reduction — it entrenches harm.”
Sabri also issued a statement Tuesday morning, criticizing the move to clear the encampment and saying the city was inflicting more harm on the victims of the shooting.
“If this city truly treated these shootings like the emergencies they are, people would already see grief and trauma counselors on the ground. We would see a citywide emergency response — with outreach workers, harm reduction teams, and housing navigators deployed. We would see safe places to stay opened immediately,” Sabri wrote. “Instead, the mayor’s answer is the same tired move we’ve seen for years: displacement.”
Council member Aurin Chowdhury said in an interview Tuesday afternoon that she hopes the city will open up a navigation center, where people without housing could securely stay and access resources. She said she wished that had been the approach when the encampment began forming in July and added that she viewed pursuing a lawsuit as performative.
”It did not need to come to a crisis point as it usually does. What we could have done is set up an indoor navigation hub for the 10-15 people that were there. We could have popped up service provision tents that were on the city right of way to get people to resources,” she said. “It did not need to sit there for what I believe is about 68 days. There was always steps that we can take.”
Frey says the city’s outreach workers will continue trying to connect people who were displaced to help. The city is also working on getting a neighborhood assistance center set up in the area that will include mental health resources for those impacted by the recent violence in Minneapolis.
Correction (Sept. 16, 2025): A previous version of this story misstated the number of people who were injured in the shooting. The above story has been updated.
