The shooting at a Minneapolis Catholic church that left two children dead and 17 other people injured follows a rash of gun violence across the city.

The shooting occurred within 24 hours of at least three other fatal shootings in Minneapolis, including a mass shooting in the afternoon on Aug. 26 in which one person died and six were injured when a gunman shot in broad daylight at people standing on a sidewalk.

"The level of gun violence across the city within the last day is deeply unsettling," Chief Brian O'Hara said in a statement after the third reported shooting early Wednesday. And then there was a fourth, at the Catholic church.

The recent outbursts of gun violence come after city leaders celebrated a "promising decline" in shootings during the first few months of 2025, mirroring recent declines in violent crime seen nationwide since the pandemic. Despite the progress, it's not unusual to see clusters of retaliatory violence, according to Jillian Peterson, executive director of the Violence Prevention Project Research Center.

"You'll see these clusters kind of pop up, and it's hard to know if that's an ongoing trend or just kind of an outlier," said Peterson, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota. "We haven't had something like this Annunciation school shooting, though, in a long time."

Minneapolis gun violence experienced 'significant' decline in 2025

Minneapolis has experienced at least six mass shootings this year, according to the nonprofit Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as one in which at least four people are struck by gunfire, not including the shooter.

So far in 2025, at least 174 people have suffered gunshot wounds and there have been 3,180 "shots fired" calls, marking a decline from this time in 2024, city data shows.

In April, O’Hara and Mayor Jacob Frey highlighted that there had been "a significant and encouraging decline in both shooting and homicide victims." No homicides occurred in Minneapolis for nearly two months, data showed.

Frey specifically celebrated gains on the city's Northside, which he said was once the most dangerous part of the city, saying it was "safer than it’s been in more than a decade" in a May address. Data for the area also showed that 2024 was the year with the fewest gunshot victims since 2014, according to the mayor.

Still, Frey acknowledged at the time "that progress can be fragile." He pointed to a spate of shootings that occurred in the city days before his address, including an April 29 mass shooting that left four people dead, which police said shattered a period of relative peace.

The Twin Cities are also still reeling from the shootings of two Minnesota lawmakers and their spouses at their homes in July. Peterson said such high-profile acts of violence can affect the public's perception of crime.

"You feel it in your gut," Peterson said. "And so it's hard to know, like, 'Here's what the data' says versus, 'Here's what I'm experiencing in my community.'"

Minneapolis mass shooting comes after a violent 24 hours

Even before the killings at Annunciation Church, the city had been rocked by three recent shootings that left eight people injured and three dead in less than 24 hours.

Officers responded to calls of shots fired just before 1:30 p.m. on Aug. 26 and found one man dead as well as five men and one woman injured. Investigators determined that a lone gunman emerged from a vehicle near the intersection of Clinton Avenue and East 29th Street and fired about 30 rounds at people standing on a sidewalk before fleeing in the vehicle.

"The level of firepower unleashed in broad daylight on a city street is sickening and completely unacceptable,” O'Hara said in a statement.

Around 8:00 p.m. the same day, officers responded to another shooting in the 2700 block of 3rd Avenue S. that left one man dead and likely injured another. Hours later, around 2 a.m. on Aug. 27, police responded to a third shooting downtown in which one man was killed and another was injured.

"Preliminary information indicates that the deceased man was part of a group gathered on the sidewalk when a gunman opened fire at close range and then left the scene on foot," police said of the third shooting.

Investigators said no arrests had been made in connection with any of those three shootings and it remains unclear if the incidents are related.

Contributing: Christopher Cann, Jeanine Santucci

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Annunciation Church shooting follows violent 24 hours in Minneapolis

Reporting by N'dea Yancey-Bragg, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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