Members of the Minneapolis Council are at odds over a Boom Island Park safety plan in the wake of Sunday's deadly shooting.
The incident claimed the life of a 23-year-old woman and injured five others. It left a scene described as a "warzone" by Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara.
Councilmember Michael Rainville, whose ward includes the park, immediately called for the Boom Island parking lot to be closed nightly until further notice, citing a history of violent incidents. Currently, city parks are open until midnight according to the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board.
"And Sunday night at 9:30, I'm sitting in my pajamas in my lounge or getting ready for a tough week at work," Rainville told WCCO's Jason DeRusha. "And all of a sudden, 'boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,' shots fired. I live a block away. Then my phone lit up from my neighbors. What the hell is going on? So I got put on my trousers and I walked down there and as I walked in, I saw the very brave police department escorting the very brave firefighters into this chaos. Hundreds of people running around to attend to the wounded that were laying there, one of which did not make it, another one is still very serious. And it was total chaos."
Rainville said he immediately called the park superintendent.
"I had some private words with him about what needs to be done, and now I'm making those public, which is they should immediately close the parking lot," Rainville said. "You should not close the park, but you shouldn't allow those cars in there because that's where the guns are coming from."
But City Council President Elliot Payne is pushing back against that idea.
"I think that any type of intervention that we do for safety should be evidence-based, and it's not clear to me what the evidence is behind that request," Payne explained.
Payne adds instead of just closing things up right away, more research needs to be done and insists a fact-based approach for a true safety solution - not a quick fix.
"I know that in the past in other areas of the city within his ward, he's made that request," says Payne. "I think what we should do is look at how effective that is. And we're all very, you know, concerned about what happened. I mean, there was a huge tragedy."
So far, no arrests related to the incident have been made.
"You know, it's really, really disturbing, that at a gathering like that at a park, looks like it was kind of like a cookout or something like that, that people would come armed to the teeth and then just open fire with all those people there in the way they did. It's absolutely disgusting," O'Hara told WCCO's Adam and Jordana on Tuesday.
In 2022, eight people were hospitalized after gunfire broke out around 11:30 p.m. as crowds gathered at Boom Island to celebrate the Fourth of July despite there not being any formal Independence Day gatherings or fireworks.