UPDATE: Police arrested a suspect Friday morning in the St. Paul homicide
St. Paul police are investigating the city’s first homicide of the year, which happened early on New Year’s Day.
A man was shot just after 2 a.m. Wednesday outside Johnny Baby’s Bar on University Avenue, a couple of blocks from Lexington Parkway.
Minneapolis also recorded its first homicide of the year when officers found a man who was stabbed in the area of Broadway and Fremont avenues shortly before 5 a.m. Wednesday.
In St. Paul, police responded to reports of gunshots and discovered a man dead in the driver’s seat of a vehicle in a parking lot of Johnny Baby’s.
Johnny Baby’s had hosted a New Year’s Eve party, according to a post on the bar’s Facebook page. St. Paul police spokesman Steve Linders said he didn’t have information about whether the victim in the car had been inside the bar.
Family members who gathered outside the bar Wednesday night identified the victim as Carl Dobbs Jr., 31, recently of Canton, Minn. They said he worked in construction and had three children, ages 7, 6 and 3.
Pandora Reynolds, his mother, said she spoke with him hours before his death.
“He was just trying to have a little fun on New Year’s Eve,” said Reynolds, of LaCrosse, Wis. “I talked to him two hours before he died. He was asking me when was the next time I was going to cook him one of my big meals. He was going to take a road trip to go see his mom.”
Reynolds said Dobbs’ two siblings were nearby when he died and stayed close to him until the coroner came about 4 a.m.
She said she wished people would end the violence.
“Why were they shooting like that? Something needs to be done about these guns.”
Police were interviewing witnesses Wednesday and collecting evidence, which could include surveillance video, Linders said.
Police had not made any arrests as of Wednesday evening. Anyone with information is asked to call 651-266-5650.
PAST SHOOTINGS OUTSIDE BAR
There were 30 homicides in St. Paul last year, the most in a single year in more than two decades.
“We all wish that we could turn the page on what was a very violent 2019 and start fresh in the new year, but unfortunately that didn’t happen and our work doesn’t begin or end with any calendar,” Linders said. “We remain as committed as ever to addressing the issue in St. Paul of people carrying and shooting guns illegally.”
Police recorded nearly 100 calls for service at Johnny Baby’s last year, which doesn’t include “a lot of proactive police visits,” when officers are checking an area, but not responding to a call, Linders said.
In May, Michael Gray, 33, was fatally shot in the bar’s parking lot. In October 2017, Brandon Christopher Roberts, 31, died after he was shot outside the bar. Both homicides remain unsolved.
After Gray was killed, the bar posted on Facebook that management would require patrons to be 30 or older and people would be searched each time they entered the bar; the post said the changes were made by the owners and not imposed by the city. In subsequent posts, bar owners said they were returning to the previous age requirement of 25 or older.
The bar was put up for sale toward the end of 2017 and again last year and remains on the market. A man identifying himself as the bar owner declined comment Wednesday.
2 HOMICIDES IN MINNEAPOLIS
In Minneapolis, officers responding to a report of a stabbing on New Year’s morning found two men inside a car and both had been stabbed.
Jabir Ahmed Ali was pronounced dead at the scene and paramedics transported the other victim to North Memorial Health Hospital in Robbinsdale with non-life-threatening injuries, according to Minneapolis police.
On Thursday night, police arrested a suspect in the homicide, Kevin Jarmaine Christians, 38.
Minneapolis saw its 48th homicide of 2019 on Tuesday night, after a woman was shot in the 1300 block of Russell Avenue North. She was identified as Monique Baugh, 28, of Minneapolis.
Police have not announced arrests in that Minneapolis case.
