Three arrested in fatal St. Paul bar shooting

Police in St. Paul, Minn., have arrested three people after a shootout at a bar early Sunday killed one woman and injured at least 14 people.

St. Paul Police Chief Todd Axtell announced the arrests Sunday afternoon and said three male suspects were being treated for injuries at a hospital; they are among law enforcement’s tally of 15 people shot. A motive for the shooting remains unclear.

Officers responded to a flurry of 911 calls about shots fired just after 12:15 a.m. Sunday at Seventh Street Truck Park, a bar on a busy dining stretch near downtown St. Paul. They arrived to what Axtell described earlier as a chaotic and “hellish” situation: More than a dozen gunshot victims dispersed around the scene. Law enforcement officials worked with “good Samaritans” to help render aid to prepare the victims for transport, police said in a news briefing early Sunday.

“There were gunshot wound victims lying in the street outside the bar, gunshot wound victims lying on the sidewalk outside the bar, and gunshot wound victims lying on the floor inside the bar,” police spokesman Steve Linders told reporters.

Linders said his partner in the department, a 15-year veteran, “can’t remember anything like this happening in St. Paul before.”

The deceased victim, who was in her 20s, was pronounced dead at the scene and will be identified pending an autopsy. The 14 people injured are expected to survive, police said. Linders said additional victims may still be making their way to hospitals.

“My heart breaks for the woman who was killed, her loved ones and everyone else who was in that bar this morning,” Axtell said in a statement.

St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter said in a statement that the city is “devastated” by the shooting, adding, “We will never accept violence in our community.”

Gov. Tim Walz called the shooting “horrific.”

“Minnesota is keeping in our hearts the family of the young woman killed and the 14 others injured, and the St. Paul neighborhood reeling from this senseless gun violence,” Walz tweeted Sunday afternoon. “We’re working in close coordination with local law enforcement as they apprehend those responsible.”