Hunt continues for suspects in 'war zone' shooting at Minneapolis' Boom Island that killed woman

Crime scene investigators sorted through hundreds of bits of evidence at a popular Minneapolis park Monday as the city's mayor and police chief bemoaned a shooting that left a 23-year-old woman dead and six people injured.

The shooting Sunday night at Boom Island Park came just more than a month after a burst of gun violence in Minneapolis left five people dead in three separate incidents. Mayor Jacob Frey stressed on social media that the city is launching a summertime campaign "to keep incidents like this rare."

As of Tuesday afternoon, law enforcement continues to search for suspects in connection with the nighttime unleashing of gunfire.

"The shooting at Boom Island Park last night was completely unacceptable," Frey posted on Facebook. In his social media post, Frey promised "a coordinated effort with law enforcement partners at every level to prevent violence and keep people safe."

Early Monday evening, the Hennepin County Medical Examiner's Office identified the woman who died as Stageina Whiting, of Brooklyn Center, who was shot once in the torso.

Darnell Robinson posted on an online fundraising page started to help the family with expenses that his daughter is "leaving behind an 8-month-old baby girl that me and her mom have to take care of. ... She was a caring, loving, hardworking young lady who went to school and worked overnights to provide for her child."

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

"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 late Monday afternoon.

The 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 this year, compared with 32 at this time last year.

Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board spokeswoman Dawn Sommers said, "The gathering was just a public group and not part of any event or tied to any organization."

O'Hara said the gathering at the park Sunday night could have been "a barbecue or something else. We believe there was more than one shooter here at the scene, but I can't elaborate further than that."

City Council Member Michael Rainville, whose ward includes the park, called for its parking lots to be closed daily at 8 p.m. until further notice.

In response to Sunday night's violence, a mobile surveillance camera is being installed in the 22½-acre park, Sommers said. She noted that until the shooting, there have been no violent crimes such as robbery or aggravated assault reported at the park this year.

"I don't know what can motivate people to come armed to a gathering like this in the way that they did," O'Hara said.

By late Monday morning, police had taken down most of the yellow tape in the park, leaving some around a green electrical box that appeared to have been knocked over by a vehicle Sunday.

While police wrapped up their work, a group of five people alerted the officers to a bullet shell they found a short distance from the Boom Island parking lot on Sibley Street NE.

Michael Jackson said his cousin was among the men wounded, and that the shooting left him with a collapsed lung.

"It happened so fast; we were just out here standing around and then next thing you know, shots just ring out," Jackson, 32, said.

In 2022, seven people were shot on Boom Island, and fireworks were shot at residential buildings and moving cars. A resident near the park estimated that up to 1,000 people were there at one point, with the large majority of people having left before the gunfire began.

For July 4th in 2023, the Park Board closed the Stone Arch Bridge, which spans the river to the south, to discourage such behavior. Even so, law enforcement still responded to violent incidents around the city that night, including several shootings and groups of people brazenly shooting fireworks at motorists.

Sunday's shooting was at least the second mass shooting in the city in the past five weeks. In late April, police responded to a shooting in south Minneapolis finding five victims. Three were pronounced dead and one person died days later. Charged in that shooting was 34-year-old James Duane Ortley, who's accused of opening fire inside a parked vehicle.

Louis Krauss of the Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this story.