4 children shot in Minneapolis shooting that police chief is calling ‘outrageous’

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A Minneapolis shooting over the weekend injured four children, an episode that the city’s police chief called “brazen” and “outrageous.”

The children, ages 11 to 13, were riding in a stolen Kia early Sunday when they were sprayed with bullets from an automatic weapon coming from a dark-colored sedan that had been following them, police said. No one had been arrested following the shooting as of Monday, a Minneapolis police spokesperson told The Associated Press.

Three of the children were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, and a fourth sustained a bullet wound to the head and was in critical but stable condition, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said Sunday morning after the shooting. Police recovered about 30 shell casings from the scene, he said.

“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.”

A fifth child in the vehicle was uninjured and initially detained after police found the children were riding in a stolen car, The Minnesota Star Tribune reported. The 11-year-old was later released.

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Police initially said they couldn’t consider charges against any of the children but later acknowledged they misinterpreted state law, according to the newspaper. Children can be prosecuted in juvenile court. None of the children had been referred for adjudication in juvenile court as of Monday.

In a statement Monday, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty urged the Minneapolis Police Department to refer more children to an intervention program designed for youths who commit auto theft.

“Law enforcement has a variety of pathways to refer youth ages 10 and older to our office,” Moriarty said.

None of the children shot in the stolen vehicle had been referred to the program, Moriarty said.

O’Hara said his department has often seen young people steal cars before becoming ensnared in violent activity.

“There’s been more aggravated assaults, more robberies, more hit-and-runs, more serious crimes, more frequently committed by those individuals involved in the theft of these cars,” O’Hara said. “One car chasing another car with fully automatic gunfire ... it just shows really brazen, callous behavior.”