One person is in custody related to a deadly shooting incident on Tuesday night.
That’s when five people were shot - three fatally - near an alley off East 25th Street and Bloomington Avenue in the Midtown-Phillips area.
34-year old James Dwayne Ortley has now been charged by warrant with murder.
Court records show Ortley appears in Hennepin County Court at 1:30 p.m. Monday. The records also show that five people inside a car were shot in the head. Only one of them has survived.
Ortely faces five second-degree murder charges. According to reports from investigators, he was a member of the Native Mob, and he was inside the car with the five victims when they were all shot in the head. The victims were two men, two women, and a teenaged boy. The only survivor is one of the women.
Shortly after the arrest, the department was notified that that fourth victim — a 28-year-old man — had died at the hospital. The victim had been hospitalized since the April 29th shooting.
Mayor Jacob Frey also offered condolences to the victims.
“My heart goes out to the family and friends of the victim we lost today,” said Mayor Frey. “These past few days have been devastating for our city. I’m grateful an arrest has been made in this senseless act of violence and appreciate the tireless work of our law enforcement partners and community members who helped bring us to this point.”
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara says while this arrest marks a major breakthrough, there’s still more work to be done.
"We urge anyone who saw something, heard something, or has knowledge of these incidents to come forward, even anonymously, in response to this surge in violence," O'Hara said Thursday in a press conference. "The MPD and our law enforcement partners, including the Hennepin County Sheriff and Metro Transit Police, have deployed additional patrols and specialized units to the affected neighborhoods."
O'Hara says police have reason to believe more suspects may have been involved and confirmed that the first shooting is related to the one shortly after that on Wednesday morning near the intersection of Cedar and East Franklin Avenues.
"This is a significant step forward in what has been an intense and fast moving investigation into the most violent incident this city has suffered this year," O'Hara adds.
Nine people have been shot in Minneapolis this week, five fatally, in five separate incidents, something O'Hara called an "outrageous outbreak of violence," in the city.
"A lot of members of our Native American community here, they have known loved ones that have been affected by violence, and they are aware of how the nature of a lot of community violence can become retaliatory, it can become a cycle," explained O'Hara.
Chief O'Hara was also at an emotional gathering in South Minneapolis Thursday where hundreds from the Native community gathered at Cedar Avenue Field Park to mourn the deaths.
"Our people are broken today," proclaimed Sharon Day who is executive director of the Indigenous Peoples Task Force.
"While the work is far from over, this arrest is a major step forward, and it is a message to those wishing to do harm or violence, and that message is very clear - this will not be tolerated in our city," Frey told reporters.