ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — A shootout at a busy bar in St. Paul, Minnesota, early Sunday left a woman dead and 14 other people wounded, authorities said.
The shooting happened shortly after midnight at the Seventh Street Truck Park bar. Police said preliminary information indicated several people fired gunshots.
Police arrested three men who were being treated at a hospital for injuries from the shootout. All three will be booked into the Ramsey County jail once they are discharged, the St. Paul Police Department said in a statement on Twitter. They have not yet been charged.
Authorities were still investigating what led to the shootout.
“We have a very busy bar, a lot of people just enjoying themselves and then we had a few individuals who decided to pull out guns and pull the trigger indiscriminately, with no regard for human life,” said police spokesman Steve Linders. “And I think about the poor woman who was just out enjoying herself. One minute she’s dancing, smiling and laughing, and the next she’s dying in friend’s arms. It’s nothing short of a tragedy.”
The woman in her 20s who was killed is the 32nd homicide victim in the city so far this year, the Star Tribune reported. All of the other people who were shot are expected to survive, police said in a statement.
“My heart breaks for the woman who was killed, her loved ones and everyone else who was in that bar this morning,” St. Paul Chief of Police Todd Axtell said in the statement. “In an instant, they found themselves caught in a hellish situation. I want them to know that we have the best investigators in the country, and we won’t stop until we find the people responsible for this madness.”
The Seventh Street Truck bar is in an entertainment district just south of the Xcel Energy Center, where the NHL’s Minnesota Wild play. Linders said he doesn’t recall any recent previous calls for police service to Seventh Street Truck Park bar.
“It’s just not on our radar as a spot where we see this type of thing,” Linders said. “We don’t see this type of thing anywhere.”
