Minneapolis music community mourning after mass shooting kills 1, injures 6

MINNEAPOLIS — Members of a popular pop-up backyard music venue came together Saturday to grieve and support each other following a deadly shooting the night before.

Anthony Taylor-Gouge says several of his friends were at an underground venue in the backyard of a home known as Nudieland Saturday night on the 2200 block of 16th Avenue South.

Police say dozens of people were gathered when the shooting started at around 10:15 p.m.

“Those folks were in a backyard at the time the shooting happened,” Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said “We believe the shooting was targeted and we have two males that fled northbound through the alleyway after the shooting.”

Seven people were shot – one of them died at the scene and another remains in critical condition. 

“I wasn’t there last night. I have friends who were, people that I’m close with. Thankfully they’re all safe but, you know, they’re really shaken up. And it’s… I don’t know how you process something like that,” Taylor-Gouge said. “It’s almost a guaranteed certainty that you knew somebody that was there last night because that’s how small it is.”

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Members of the community decided to turn an already planned abortion rights fundraiser into a fundraiser for victims of the shooting.

“We’re trying to do this in a way that provides a space for people that, like, they don’t want to be alone right now. They want to be with their people. They want to be with their community,” Taylor-Gouge said.

Two GoFundMes have already been established and have already raised tens of thousands of dollars.

Police haven’t been able to share a motive for the shooting, but Anthony hopes they weren’t targeted as a community.

“You see kids walking around with spikey jackets and all black, right? Or maybe they have a Mohawk or piercings on their face but like, these are people that have other people in their lives that care about them,” Taylor-Gouge said.

Anyone with information regarding the shooting is asked to call the Minneapolis Police Department.