MINNEAPOLIS – One man is dead and two others are in critical condition after an early morning shooting at a small camp in Minneapolis on Saturday, October 26th.

The three men were in a residential area southwest of Franklin and Bloomington avenues on the city’s south side when three other people approached them around 4:30 a.m. and a shooting ensued, according to Minneapolis police.

Police have not yet identified those people or their motives.

A 911 caller reported the sound of automatic gunfire. Shortly after, police were called to the scene and found the three victims with life-threatening injuries. They were taken to hospital, where one later died.

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said all three victims are “at risk” people known to police — meaning they have been victims of, witnessed crimes or been involved in crimes in the past.

About 13 percent of all murders in Minneapolis’ 3rd Precinct occur within 500 yards of homeless encampments, O’Hara said. He added that nearly a quarter of this year’s shooting victims were also in close proximity to the camps.

“This is an ongoing issue with the camps and just all the activity associated with it,” he said. “As soon as one camp is cleared, another pops up elsewhere and crime in the area immediately increases.

“It’s a really, really, just frustrating and ongoing problem for the residents who live here. And it turns out that there are problems. Whether they’re big or small, there are safety issues and they’re just not human places for people.”

The shooting greatly affects residents of the area – both settled and not – concerned about crime around the camps.

“It’s what makes it difficult to live here,” said Paula Williamson, speaking to O’Hara about her concerns. She’s lived in the neighborhood since the 1970s. In recent years, she’s been at the center of conversations about homelessness in Minneapolis, with sometimes as many as 100 people living in now-closed encampments like Nenookaasi Camp and the Wall of the Forgotten Natives.

No one has threatened her and everyone is friendly, Williamson said. Instead, it feels like people are moved rather than helped.

“It was just a mole,” she said.

So did 21-year-old Amelia Benjamin, who lives in a nearby tent and saw the victims as family.

“We need help. We are here dying,” she said, wrapping her arms around her body to cry. “We need housing or something. Man, something. We don’t need another “getting kicked out and having to move.”

Benjamin is a descendant of the Mille Lacs band of Ojibwe and said many around her are also Native youth struggling to survive. She started abusing substances in 2020 after the killing of George Floyd and has been homeless since she was 18. She said she is working to get sober.

“It has to be different for our community, for our people. This thing has to change. This cannot continue to happen. It’s just tragic,” Benjamin said.