A 19-year-old window washer was shot and critically injured while working outside a residential building downtown near the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis on Friday evening.

Minneapolis police officers were dispatched to the building's loading dock just before 5 p.m. and found a man with a gunshot wound. The victim was transported to HCMC. His condition is unknown.

"Preliminary information indicates he was interacting with occupants of a [nearby] vehicle," said officer Garrett Parten, a Minneapolis police spokesman. "At some point, he left the vehicle and shots rang out."

The suspects reportedly fled in a black sedan. A witness saw police performing chest compressions until paramedics arrived.

Andre Bradford, a fellow employee at Starbrite Window Cleaning, was working alongside the victim on the ground floor of a downtown residential building across the alley from the Federal Reserve, 90 Hennepin Av., when he heard a gunshot. The young man then collapsed on the ground beside him, he said.

MARK VANCLEAVE, Star Tribune, Star Tribune
Minneapolis police officers investigated the scene where witnesses said a man working on a window cleaning crew was shot in Minneapolis’ North Loop neighborhood on Friday.

"He was on a stretcher," Bradford told the Star Tribune. "He stopped breathing. I was holding his hand."

It was their first week on the job.