St. Paul police officers arrested a man and a woman early Monday morning in the shooting death of an alleged home intruder, and the facts of the case are still being unraveled. What began as an apparent home invasion resulted in the arrest of the two people who were in the residence.
Authorities report the woman who lived at the home in the Hamline-Midway neighborhood phoned 911 to report an intruder. While she relayed the details, a man joined the call and said he had shot the suspect on their front porch multiple times.
Then another call came into 911, apparently from the man who’d been shot. Police reported he told the emergency responder that he was dying before the call went silent. He did not respond to further questions.
Officers arrived at around 1:45 a.m. and found the injured man on the front porch.
He was transported to Regions Hospital where he later died. The suspect was identified on Tuesday by the Ramsey County Medical Examiner’s Office as 35-year-old Drew Johnson.
Intruder killed during St. Paul home invasion: Police. Click the image to read more: https://t.co/LQA0L45J91
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St. Paul police spokesman Sgt. Mike Ernster told reporters that the couple initially refused to be interviewed by investigators. Later the man and woman were arrested on suspicion of second-degree murder. They were booked and then released.
Police said the female told the 911 operator that she knew the man attempting to enter the residence. In a statement, authorities said they continue to attempt “to determine the circumstances that led to this shooting.”
The couple arrested and taken to the Ramsey County jail were only identified as a 30-year-old man and a 35-year-old woman.
Police reported Monday morning’s shooting death was the 32nd in the city in 2023. St. Paul suffered 40 homicides in 2022.
After a spike that coincided with the violent BLM riots of 2020, St. Paul saw criminal incidents fall in 2022. Acts such as murder and other crimes causing physical injury dropped 8.6% across the state in 2022, while property crimes also decreased by 3.6%.
Numbers are still much higher than in 2019, the year before anti-police protests and political movements emboldened criminals to act. It may be several years before the country fully recovers from the tragedy that was 2020.
