Man killed, another seriously injured in shootings near St. Paul convenience store
A man was killed and another was seriously wounded in shootings outside a St. Paul convenience store on Thursday night.
Multiple people called 911 to report shots fired in the North End about 9:15 p.m. and officers found a man lying in the street in the area of Maryland Avenue and Arundel Street. Another man was in a nearby vehicle.
The shootings of the men, who police said they believed were in their early 20s, happened outside the Maryland Supermarket.
Paramedics pronounced the man in the street dead and brought the other man to Regions Hospital, where he was taken into surgery, according to police.
No one was under arrest as of early Friday and police asked anyone with information to call the homicide unit at 651-266-5650.
The police department plans to release the name of the man who was killed after the Ramsey County medical examiner’s office confirms his identity. His homicide was the 12th of the year in St. Paul.
STORE OWNER’S LAWSUIT AGAINST CITY
The owner of Maryland Supermarket and Maryland Tobacco filed a lawsuit against the city of St. Paul last year, saying the city council had effectively zoned the tobacco portion of his shop out of existence.
The city council gave several reasons for declining to rezone the property last July, including that Maryland Avenue was “transforming into a more residential street” and citing 1,700 police calls and visits to the property over the preceding three years, including a homicide, according to a summary in an order filed by Ramsey County District Court Judge Sara Grewing in March.
“Such activity prompted homeowners to sell their homes and resulted in the placement of a police camera to monitor the activity in the area,” the summary continued.
Business owner Ali Alfureedy said in his lawsuit that the city council was scapegoating his property for crime in the neighborhood.
Grewing granted the city of St. Paul’s request to dismiss two of three counts in Alfureedy’s lawsuit. The remaining count, in which Alfureedy said the city council’s denial of his rezoning application for traditional neighborhood zoning was in error, “will proceed in the normal course of litigation,” Grewing wrote.
