Four people shot in Minneapolis Tuesday afternoon; 1 dead, 1 critical

Four people were shot — one fatally — Tuesday afternoon near a south Minneapolis corner store that was the site of a mass shooting last summer.

The gunfire erupted near E. Franklin and Elliot avenues, between the alley and sidewalk, along a stretch that is a known narcotics "hot spot," police Chief Brian O'Hara said in a media briefing at the scene. Multiple shooters were involved, evidenced by dozens of bullet casings that littered the ground outside the market and in the street.

Officers responded to the area at 1:25 p.m. and found three victims, one dead on arrival. A 37-year-old man was critical and a 37-year-old woman had non-life threatening injuries. The fourth victim, a 31-year-old man, was taken by private vehicle to a hospital.

"We do suspect that this was not a standalone incident," said O'Hara, who noted that much of the recent violence has been related to a string of robberies involving troubled youth. "But this is something totally separate from that."

No firearms were recovered from the scene and no arrests had been made in the case as of Tuesday evening.

MPD positioned several squad cars and a screen around the deceased man's body to shield him from the public's view. But as word of the shooting spread, grieving relatives huddled together against the wind and freezing temperatures.

Mae Ellen sat in a folding chair just outside the yellow crime tape for hours in the cold, waiting to catch a glimpse of her grandson lying lifeless in the street.

She identified him as Pierre Romel Miller, 34, of Brooklyn Park.

"He had a job, went to college and got a certificate," Ellen told the Star Tribune, explaining that Miller made a good living working as a welder. "He's a big hearted person."

Ellen said the family has reason to believe that a group of men followed Miller from downtown Minneapolis and targeted him over some unknown dispute. He was shot in the leg and head, she said.

Court records indicate that Miller was convicted in 2010 of aiding and abetting 2nd-degree murder in connection with a fatal northeast Minneapolis shooting. He served eight years in prison and was released in 2018.

Tuesday's shooting occurred near Minneapolis Market, where gunfire last August wounded eight, including six teenagers. In that shooting, at least 41 shell casings from three various calibers were recovered near S. Elliot and Franklin avenues, according to police, among them a .223 — commonly used in high-powered guns such as the AR-15.

The wounded included a 45-year-old woman and seven males: one 15, three 16, one 17, one 18 and one 48.

Ventura Village, the part of the Phillips neighborhood where the shooting took place, is among Minneapolis communities that experienced significant increases in reported gunfire since 2020 compared with pre-pandemic years, with a Star Tribune analysis showing the bulk of those occurring in the half-mile radius of Chicago and Franklin. And as reported gunfire decreased by about 30% citywide in 2023, change in Ventura Village has been slower as gunshot volume has stayed roughly the same as in 2022.

Also in Minneapolis, a 67-year-old woman was struck by a stray bullet fired from outside her home Monday night in the East Phillips neighborhood of south Minneapolis, while another man was hospitalized after a barrage of gunfire on W. Lake Street.

Minneapolis police are investigating both incidents and say they are unrelated. In the first incident, Third Precinct officers responded at 7:15 p.m. to the shooting at a home in the 2500 block of Ogema Place. They found the woman injured with a non life-threatening gunshot wound. She was taken to HCMC, and investigators determined the gunfire came from outside the house and she was not the intended target.

The other shooting occurred just before 10:30 p.m. near the 1300 block of Lake Street in the Uptown neighborhood. A 911 dispatcher reported what "sounded like automatic gunfire." Officers arrived and found casings outside a Target store and apartment building, along with a vehicle parked nearby.

As officers were arriving, the 18-year-old man was admitted to the emergency room at HCMC with gunshot injuries.

An earlier version of this story incorrectly reported the address where the Lake Street shooting occurred.