St. Paul police investigating homicide in Como neighborhood

Mara H. Gottfried, Pioneer Press
Updated ·2 min read
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Police launched a homicide investigation Friday after a woman reported a man was dead in a St. Paul home and officers responded and found a man deceased.

A person called 911 about 7:30 a.m., saying a woman had approached and told them about the man in the Como neighborhood, said Sgt. Mike Ernster, a St. Paul police spokesman.

In a home on Hatch Avenue near Chatsworth Street, St. Paul Fire medics pronounced the man dead. The Ramsey County medical examiner’s office will conduct an autopsy to determine the cause of death and confirm the man’s identity, Ernster said.

Police said the autopsy will help determine whether a weapon was used.

“There is a level of trauma … that does indicate that we believe this is a homicide,” Ernster said. “We just do not know exactly what caused his death yet.”

Officers brought the woman who reported the man’s death to police headquarters to be interviewed by investigators. She wasn’t under arrest and neither was anyone else, Ernster said.

Police were previously called to the address 21 times since the start of the year, with four of the calls categorized as domestic incidents, five as assaults and four as disturbances, police records show.

Sean Devaney, who lives nearby, said he heard screaming Friday morning from the alley where the house is. A woman was saying things along the lines of, “He’s not breathing, he’s not alive,” he said.

Devaney said the problems when police were previously called were apparently centered around one of the owners, a man in his 30s, and his girlfriend.

“This has been going on for a few years and we knew sooner or later something like this was going to happen,” Devaney said. He said he’d previously talked to the man and his girlfriend and the man’s father who also owns the home.

When police initially went into the home Friday, they encountered a large dog that bit an officer, and the officer fatally shot the dog, Ernster said.

The homicide was the 15th of the year in St. Paul. There were 17 as of this time last year.

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