A single mother who recently moved to Minneapolis with her son is looking to flee from her crime-ridden neighborhood after a pair of shootings left the community paralyzed.
The shootings, one of which was fatal and later determined to be a homicide, took place in the same area of the Uptown neighborhood last weekend. The gunfire from one of the shootings damaged several buildings, cars, and apartments.
A 21-year-old was shot and killed outside a building located at 29th Street West and Fremont Avenue South late Friday evening, the Hennepin County Medical Examiner said, according to Saint Paul’s KSTP-TV.
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Forty-eight hours later, on Sunday, police confirmed another shooting had taken place that damaged buildings and cars, the outlet noted. Two women were also injured by shards of glass as a result of the shooting.
Lecretia, a single mother who lives in the community and spoke with the outlet, said one of the bullets shattered the glass door on her apartment’s porch while her son was bathing and preparing for school the following day.
“We both could have been hit by a situation we had nothing to do with,” said Lecretia, who asked that her last name be withheld from the report. “Literally nothing to do with [it], innocent bystanders.”
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Lecretia and her son – neither of whom were injured in the shootings – had reportedly moved to the area from California, and she admitted the neighborhood is not what she was “expecting” in terms of safety.
“The movers came maybe three or four days ago. Plenty of stuff in boxes on the floor, never got a chance to unpack and this happened,” she told the outlet. “I grabbed our suitcases that we had packed from our flights here. I’m like, ‘Let’s go.’”
Local police said a sprinkler at the apartment building had been struck by a bullet, which led to some water making its way into the family’s apartment.
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Following the shootings, a community member reportedly set up a fundraising page to assist efforts by Lecretia and her son to relocate to a safer community.
KTSP noted that water restoration crews were spotted on Monday outside the apartment building, which has several holes in it.
The Minneapolis Police Department also said Monday that it will beef up patrols in the area and deploy “specialty units” in the neighborhood in an effort to prevent further crime, the outlet reported.