Police have arrested a St. Paul man in relation to a Fourth of July shooting on the city’s West Side at a fireworks gathering.
Officers arrested 27-year-old Jarrell Ray Kirk on suspicion of assault in the incident. He told investigators he got into an altercation with someone, a person shot at him and he returned fire, according to a search warrant filed Thursday. Kirk has a permit to carry a gun, the warrant said.
Police said Thursday their investigation continues and a case had not been presented to the Ramsey County attorney’s office for charging consideration.
On Wednesday at about 10:45 p.m., a driver flagged down an officer near Robert and Fifth streets and reported he was taking his brother, who had been shot, to the hospital, said Sgt. Mike Ernster, a St. Paul police spokesman. Police escorted the man to nearby Regions Hospital. Their names were not available.
The man was shot two or three times in the leg and torso, Ernster said. His injuries were serious, but he was expected to survive, according to a police report.
The man’s brother reported they were shooting off fireworks on the West Side, in the area of Clinton Avenue and Congress Street, when his brother told him he felt something hit him twice and realized he had been shot, Ernster said.
Another family member gave police a license plate number of what she described as the suspect’s vehicle, Ernster said.
Police determined the vehicle registered to a Frogtown address, checked the area and found the vehicle. The owner, Kirk, approached an officer and reported he had been in an altercation, according to the search warrant affidavit.
Kirk said he left the gun in his apartment, which is on Blair Avenue near Dale Street, “for safe keeping before coming out to speak to” officers, the affidavit continued.
Police applied for a search warrant for Kirk’s apartment, which a judge granted, and they found a 9mm gun on the living room table and Kirk’s permit to carry, according to an inventory with the search warrant.