5 October 2023
For the person or people bold enough to shoot teenaged girls, killing a 14-year-old in St. Paul, community members demanded Thursday they also be bold enough to turn themselves in.
“Show them how tough you are now and be accountable,” said Marea Perry, whose 21-year-old son was murdered in St. Paul in 2019.
The shootings happened in a parking lot of an apartment building on Hazelwood Street near East Maryland Avenue in the Prosperity Heights area of the Greater East Side.
Multiple 911 callers and an officer on patrol reported hearing gunshots in the area of Hazelwood Street and East Maryland Avenue about 7:45 p.m. Wednesday. The calls led officers to the 1200 block of Hazelwood Street, and they found three teen girls who were injured.
Paramedics took them to Regions Hospital, where 14-year-old Monica Holley, of St. Paul, died. The injuries to the other two teens, who are 13 and 15 years old, are not considered life-threatening, said Sgt. Mike Ernster, a St. Paul police spokesman.
A 19-year-old woman later arrived at the hospital with a gunshot injury to her leg.
“It’s extremely senseless,” Ernster said early Thursday. “… I cannot imagine what a family is going through right now. As a father myself, it’s unthinkable to have something like this happen. And for somebody to pull the trigger in our city and cause this young girl’s death and to injure these other girls, it’s unfathomable.”
Police were looking for witnesses and surveillance video to help determine what happened. No one was immediately under arrest.
Investigators asked anyone with information to call them at 651-266-5650.
The girl’s death was the 27th homicide of the year in St. Paul, which matches the number of homicides at this time last year.
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