Four minors, ranging in age from 11 to 14 years old, were shot inside a stolen Kia in Minneapolis early Sunday. One of the occupants of the car was uninjured.

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said a dark colored sedan pulled up behind the Kia and began firing shots. The sedan left the area before officers arrived.

Police responded to the incident in the 1400 block of Plymouth Avenue North around 1 a.m. after responding to multiple ShotSpotter alerts nearby in the area.

Officers provided medical aid until firefighters and EMS arrived, according to the police press release, and all four were transported by ambulance to HCMC. Two boys and one girl had apparent non-life threatening injuries, while one girl had life-threatening injuries. The fifth juvenile, who was uninjured, was transported home.

“Four kids shot between eleven and fourteen is outrageous and everyone should be up in arms over it,” O’Hara said. “The police are doing everything that we can in response to this, but we can’t keep responding after the fact. More needs to be done to deter this type of activity in the first place.”

O’Hara noted that over the last two years, juveniles being involved in joy-riding with stolen vehicles, frequently Kia and Hyundai models, has been a “tremendous problem.” The police chief noted that the number of thefts of these two models has dropped by a quarter, and they were less than half of all vehicles stolen in the city.

“While there’s fewer of these cars are being stolen, the activity that these juveniles are involved in have become more brazen,” O’Hara said. “There’s been more aggravated assaults, more robberies, more hit and runs. [There’s been] more serious crimes more frequently committed by those individuals who are involved in the theft of these cars.

“We are failing to deter this behavior and with that we are failing these kids as well,” O’Hara added.

No arrests have been made in the case.

A shooting around 1 a.m. Sunday left four children injured — one critically.

According to Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara, officers were notified of several ShotSpotter activations on the 1200 block of West Broadway Avenue. While responding, the officers were also notified of a 911 call stating that there was a vehicle with multiple people shot inside on the 1400 block of Plymouth Avenue North.

Officers found five children inside the car, four of whom had gunshot wounds. The injured included two boys and two girls, ages 11-14 years old, police said. They were brought to the hospital and the fifth juvenile was arrested, as the vehicle they were in was stolen.

Three of the children had non-life-threatening injuries, but one of the girls was shot in the head. O’Hara said she is in critical but stable condition.

Police said that preliminary information indicates that the group was driving a stolen Kia when someone driving a dark-colored sedan started following them and later shot at them with fully automatic gunfire. O’Hara added that around 30 pieces of ballistic evidence were recovered from the scene, but it’s possible even more rounds were fired, with some of the casings being in the sedan.

“This is a tremendous problem we’ve been having over the past two years — juveniles joyriding in stolen cars and then becoming involved in more and more serious crime,” O’Hara said. “We’ve noticed this year that the theft of Kias and Hyundais is down by about a quarter, and for most of the summer, Kias and Hyundais were less than half of all the vehicles stolen in the city.”

O’Hara noted that there was a slight uptick in the number of stolen Kias and Hyundais in the past month but said that while fewer of these cars are being stolen, the juvenile crime associated with the thefts has become more brazen. He added that there have been more aggravated assaults, robberies, hit-and-runs and other serious crimes more frequently committed by those involved in the vehicle thefts.

“I think, in a lot of ways, we are failing to deter this activity,” he said. “Two of the five juveniles involved in this incident were arrested not even two weeks ago for being in a stolen car.”

“Four kids shot between 11-14[years old] is outrageous,” O’Hara added. “And everyone should be up in arms over it. The police are doing everything that we can in response to this, but we can’t keep responding after the fact, we can’t keep arresting these kids. More needs to be done to deter this type of activity in the first place.”

When asked how to deter juveniles from stealing vehicles, O’Hara said he feels there haven’t been adequate consequences for the teens who have been arrested,

Welna Hardware is a family business with deep roots in South Minneapolis.  
  
“We’ve been on the block for seventy years,” owner Mark Welna says.

But he explains he has concerns about a new neighbor.

“We have another encampment in the old Super America parking lot,” Welna notes. “It’s just been very tough on the neighborhood.”

He says about three weeks ago, a couple of tents began appearing just across the street, at East 25th Street and Bloomington Avenue.

The encampment is now much bigger — and Welna says it’s having an impact.

“The shoplifting at the store, the panhandling, people afraid to come across Lake Street and shop at our store,” he declares. “On a daily basis, we’ve had people coming in and out that we’ve had to kick out that have been from the encampment.”

Welna, who has tenants living in a building next to the encampment, says some of them have moved out because of safety concerns.

“It’s really unsafe, and we really need something done,” says Angel Roa. “This is getting worse every time.”

Roa, a longtime employee at the store, has lived in the building since 1992.

He showed us hypodermic needles littering an alley behind his apartment — and part of a cardboard box used as an outdoor restroom.

Roa says the needles began appearing when the encampment went up.

He adds his 80-year-old mother, visiting from Puerto Rico, is afraid to leave the building. 

“Every time we have to open the door, there’s people blocking the door using heroin and all kinds of drugs,” Roa says. “You see young people doing the heroin and stuff right in your face. It is sad.”

Welna says he believes police are doing what they can — there is an MPD security camera right next to the encampment.

“I feel bad that people feel like that, I don’t like it that people are scared or in fear, but I doubt that’s happening,” declares Nicole Nalewaja.

A 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS crew tried to speak with people in the encampment but were asked to leave.

But Nalewaja — who says she has friends and family there, agreed to be interviewed.

“We started in tents, teepees, and wigwams, whatever, right?” she says. “So, it’s like a community, we’re like a family, right, so why is that a bad thing?”

Nalewaja disputes that encampment residents have done any shoplifting at Welna’s store — and says there were drug issues in the area long before the encampment arrived.

She argues that people have a right to live there.

“We don’t want to live in houses, some people don’t want to live in houses, they want to live like we used to live,” Nalewaja declares. “So, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.”

City Council member Jason Chavez, who represents the area, released a statement Saturday, which says in part:

“People are going to live outside until we have enough public health infrastructure to meet their needs. If we don’t have adequate shelter space that’s effective for people and they have nowhere to go, they will be living outside in the community.”

Chavez says the city recently lost a total of one-hundred-thirty shelter beds, run by two different programs, despite a search for resources by Agate, a Minneapolis housing and services non-profit.

He says he’s also reached out to city staff to see how to address issues like more “proactively cleaning up the neighborhood and cleaning up the needles.”

On Monday, Ward 8 Council Member Andrea Jenkins is hosting a meeting to discuss the city’s unhoused community and encampment issues.

Chavez says the City Council will hold a public hearing on September 11th to discuss one of four ordinances designed to address homelessness in the city.

Still — Roa says he’s worried about the future.

“Ten years from now, what’s my neighborhood going to be?” he asks. “I work here, I go to church here, I go to the bars here, my grocery store is a few blocks away. This has been my life for over thirty years.”

Welna — who’s planning to sell the store to his children to keep the business in the family, hopes there will be a path to move forward.

“It’s very, very sad. I’m kind of at my wit’s end about this situation,” he says. “But I would hate to close down the store because of crime. That’s the part that really, it tugs at my heart.”