Update: St. Paul man charged with murder
Four to five gunshots rang out at a gathering of young people in St. Paul on Wednesday night. Screaming and people running quickly followed.
“It was chaos,” said a 17-year-old who was there and who saw a young man as he lay bleeding in the kitchen of a Highland Park home. People rushed to help him, but there was nothing they could do, the teen said.
Paramedics pronounced Tyshawn Hill, 19, dead at the scene.
Police made two arrests Thursday. Investigators do not believe the shooting was a random incident or that there is any general public safety threat, said Sgt. Mike Ernster, a St. Paul police spokesman.
The 17-year-old who attended the party didn’t know Hill, but he said he’s hoping for justice.
“No one deserves to be shot and killed when they’re just trying to have a good time,” said the teen, who asked not to be named out of concern for his safety. “It’s not something that should be happening.”
Hill lived in Chicago and was in St. Paul for the summer, staying with his aunt, according to Carmelina Bennett, a cousin of Hill’s.
On Wednesday, 30 to 40 young people were at a get-together in a home in the 2400 block of Youngman Avenue, a residential street in the lower Highland neighborhood that parallels Shepard Road.
The 17-year-old had attended other parties at the house hosted by a teenage girl who lives there. She had always let people know that the gatherings weren’t a place for violence, the 17-year-old said.
But there was tension in the air Wednesday night, so the 17-year-old said he ended up hanging out in a detached garage with other friends.
At about 9:45 p.m., the teen heard a commotion. He could see through a window of the home that a refrigerator was tipping over, and he believed it was because people were tussling or being thrown around. Then came the gunshots.
“You could see the room lit up from the shots,” said the teen, who said he was among the witnesses who talked with police. “The screams were the worst part because you’re sitting there and you didn’t really know what to do.”
He rushed to see if it was one of his friends who had been shot and saw a male, whom he’d briefly talked to about 20 minutes earlier, bleeding on the kitchen floor.
“He was gasping for his life,” said the teen, who described being so scared that it was hard to look away.
A male with a gun was seen fleeing out of a bathroom window. He was bleeding from the arm, but people didn’t know if he cut it as he climbed out the window or he’d been grazed by a bullet, according to the teen.
“He was clearly wounded because when he tried to jump over the fence the first time, he kind of fell back, but then he got back up and jumped over the fence again,” the teen said. “There wasn’t anything we could do. … Obviously, in that situation, if you see someone with a gun, you’re thinking about your life.”
Police have been interviewing witnesses, who Ernster said are cooperating, but police are still asking anyone with information to call them at 651-266-5650.
“We’re still trying to put the pieces together, trying to determine a suspect,” Ernster said early Thursday.
Bennett said Hill leaves behind his mother and younger sister, whom he always tried to look out for.
