St. Paul police have arrested a teenager in connection with the shooting death of an Asian American woman in the Payne-Phalen neighborhood, KARE 11 reports.
Julia (Yuliya) Li was shot near the 1000 block of Payne Avenue, The Star Tribune reports. She was found inside her vehicle on that block with a gunshot wound. Police believe the shooting was random.
Li was a global business director for H.B. Fuller, Bring Me The News reports. The 34-year-old was working on the company’s project with Amazon.
The 15-year-old suspect is being held at the Hennepin County jail on suspicion of second-degree murder.
St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter condemned the city’s level of gun violence in light of Li’s death.
“The proliferation of guns across our country continues to be a challenge for every major American city. Right here in Saint Paul, we today suffer more gun violence than ever before,” Carter said, according to KARE 11.
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This article left something out that was reported in some local accounts:
‘Entirely preventable’
St. Paul Police Chief Todd Axtell commended the Minneapolis Police Department for arresting the teenager, saying, “Their diligence and determination made this arrest possible and took a violent teen off the streets.”
Linders said the teenager has “an extensive and violent criminal history.” Details about this were unknown as of this writing.
“Sadly, this is yet another example of how our system has failed to put victims first, failed to help a young person going down a dangerous and destructive path, and failed our entire community,” Axtell said, noting “This tragedy was entirely preventable.”
He added:
“If every spoke in the criminal justice wheel had been working together to hold this teen accountable for his previous crimes, Ms. Li would still be here today, the suspect may have been able to receive the help and consequences to right his course, and our city would not have had to suffer the trauma of hearing random gunshots echoing through a neighborhood.”
I wonder if this murder of an Asian-American will be reported by any news networks and if they do, they also edit out this critical detail.