Burst of ‘war zone’ gunfire in Boom Island Park in Minneapolis kills 1, wounds others

Crime scene investigators sorted through hundreds of bits of evidence at a popular Minneapolis park on Monday as the city’s mayor and police chief bemoaned a shooting that left a woman dead and six people injured.

The shooting Sunday night at Boom Island Park came just over month after a burst of gun violence in Minneapolis that left five people dead in three separate incidents. Police Chief Brian O’Hara described the Sunday night melee as “more akin to a war zone,” and Mayor Jacob Frey stressed on social media that the city is launching a summertime campaign “to keep incidents like this rare.”

“The shooting at Boom Island Park last night was completely unacceptable,” Frey posted on Facebook. He promised “a coordinated effort with law enforcement partners at every level to prevent violence and keep people safe.”

Police arrived to the park, across the Mississippi River from downtown Minneapolis, around 9:30 p.m. Sunday. O’Hara said at least 100 people were still in the park when officers arrived. The woman who was fatally shot was in a vehicle at the time, then taken to HCMC where she died. Five other men were shot, one critically, and another woman was treated for minor injuries inflicted during the mayhem.

“It’s more akin to a war zone with the amount of shell casings that the officers are recovering here,” O’Hara said Monday morning at a media briefing in the park.

There were no arrests reported as of Monday afternoon.

The large-scale shooting brought the city its first homicide in more than two weeks, according to a Minnesota Star Tribune database. There have now been 23 homicides in the city so far this year compared with 32 at this time last year.

Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board spokeswoman Dawn Sommers said Monday afternoon that the group in the park Sunday night was not part of a permitted event.