A shootout left two males wounded Sunday night about a block from Allianz Field in St. Paul, just as Minnesota United was beginning a playoff game against LA Galaxy.
The shooting occurred at 7:35 p.m. in a parking lot behind a laundromat at Pascal Street and University Avenue, according to Steve Linders, a St. Paul police spokesman.
Linders said his heart sank when he heard about the shooting.
“Anytime that I hear someone’s been shot, it’s a sad situation,” he said. “… When you have 20,000 people enjoying a soccer game, it just elevates it and makes it that (much) more acute.”
At the time of the shooting, about 20,000 people were settling in to watch the Major League Soccer first round playoff game. The parking lot where the shooting took place is about 1,000 feet northeast of Allianz Field.
Many police officers were working in the area and responded to the shooting in a minute or two, Linders said.
Witnesses reported there was a group of people behind The Laundry Place and another group passed by.
“At some point, shots were fired, so we know that at least two people were exchanging gunfire and, unfortunately, two people were struck,” Linders said. Police said it did not appear random.
One male sustained “a grazing gunshot wound to the head” and also was shot in the arm, and the other was shot multiple times in the torso, said Linders, who didn’t have information Sunday night about whether they are adults or juveniles.
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Paramedics transported the males to Regions Hospital to be treated for non-life threatening injuries.
Police took a suspected shooter into custody and recovered a handgun at the scene. Officers were still looking for the other shooter Sunday night and asked anyone with information to call police at 651-266-5650.
Sunday night’s shooting comes on the heels of an especially violent September in St. Paul.
St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter addressed the media at the scene of Sunday night’s shooting.
“It’s time for us to do something fundamentally different in St. Paul and in our country,” Carter said. “We’ve seen too much of this. … Stopping these cycles requires much more than just police resources.”
Frederick Melo contributed to this report.