A 13-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl were shot in the leg overnight in St. Paul, found by officers responding to a report of a person shot in the 300 block of Aurora Avenue just after 2 a.m. Police say both victims' injuries are not life-threatening, and no arrests have been made as investigators work to piece together what happened.
According to CBS News, St. Paul police were called to the scene after a report of a person shot, and officers arrived to find the two teenagers suffering from apparent gunshot wounds to the leg. A preliminary investigation places the shooting near Sherburne Avenue and Marion Street, according to the outlet's report. Investigators with the department's Non-Fatal Shooting Unit are now looking into the incident, per the same account.
A Late-Night Scene Steps From the Capitol
The area around Sherburne Avenue and Marion Street sits in St. Paul's South Frogtown and Capitol Heights neighborhood, less than a mile northwest of the Minnesota State Capitol complex, according to Saint Paul Historical. The corridor runs just north of University Avenue, a stretch of the city that has seen repeated overnight violence this year. On July 18, pre-dawn gunfire near Edmund Avenue West and North Kent Street in the same Frogtown neighborhood left one man dead and two others wounded, a shooting Hoodline covered in its report, Pre-Dawn Bloodshed Shocks Frogtown.
Because the victims are 13 years old and were outside well past St. Paul's youth curfew, the shooting also raises questions about late-night supervision. Under St. Paul Code Section 437.10, minors under 15 are prohibited from being in public places between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. unless accompanied by a parent or guardian, per regulations published by the City of Saint Paul. Officers who encounter curfew violators typically transport them to a youth diversion center or release them to a guardian, though it remains unclear from available reporting what led the two teens to be at that intersection at 2 a.m., or whether they were targeted or caught in crossfire.
Specialized Unit Built to Crack Non-Fatal Cases
The case now falls to St. Paul's Non-Fatal Shooting Unit, a dedicated team the police department created in January 2024 with $1.7 million in state legislative funding to investigate non-fatal shootings using the same resources typically reserved for homicides. Per MPR News, the unit helped push the city's non-fatal shooting clearance rate from 37% in 2023 to 71% in 2025, a model the department based on Denver's own non-fatal shooting investigation strategy. The results have drawn attention beyond St. Paul: Minneapolis launched its own Firearm Assault Shoot Team in early 2026 after studying St. Paul's approach, and reported doubling its case closures for non-fatal shootings within months, according to CBS News. Minneapolis had cleared under 25% of its non-fatal shootings in 2024.
In May, Ramsey County Attorney John Choi and St. Paul police leaders petitioned the Minnesota Legislature for $1 million to fund a statewide grant program that would help other agencies build similar units, a proposal that gained bipartisan backing, per FOX 9. The effort reflects a broader push by St. Paul officials to treat non-fatal shootings as seriously as homicides rather than letting them go unsolved.
A Pattern of Teen Gunshot Victims This Summer
Wednesday's shooting adds to a run of incidents involving teenage gunshot victims in St. Paul this summer. Less than two weeks earlier, a 14-year-old boy was shot in the leg on August 19 in the 1100 block of Supornick Lane on the city's Greater East Side, leading to the arrest of a 17-year-old suspect, as Hoodline reported in 14-Year-Old Shot, Teen Held. That victim was brought to the hospital in a private vehicle. In June, police also investigated an overnight shooting in the nearby Dayton's Bluff neighborhood in which a 17-year-old boy was shot in the back alongside an 18-year-old victim.
Gunshot victims in central St. Paul are routinely taken to HealthPartners' Regions Hospital at 640 Jackson Street, the primary Level I Adult and Pediatric Trauma Center for Ramsey County and the main trauma hub for the East Metro, located under two miles east of Marion Street and Sherburne Avenue. The broader numbers point to a mixed picture: through mid-August, St. Paul had recorded 13 homicides compared to seven over the same period in 2025, an 85% year-over-year increase even as overall violent crime declined in many major U.S. cities. That uptick contrasts with the significant drop in homicides the city achieved between 2022 and 2025, and it comes as community leaders continue to stress the need for youth violence prevention alongside police enforcement.
As of Tuesday morning, St. Paul police had not announced any arrests in the Aurora Avenue shooting, and it remains unknown whether investigators have recovered surveillance footage or firearm evidence from the scene. The Non-Fatal Shooting Unit's involvement means the case will be worked with the same intensity typically applied to a homicide, even though both teenagers are expected to survive their wounds.
