Man shot and wounded at funeral on Minnesota reservation

CLOQUET, Minn. (AP) — One man was shot and a suspect was arrested after a shooting Friday on an American Indian reservation in northern Minnesota that prompted a lockdown of tribal offices and a school.

The shooting happened at around 10 a.m. during a funeral at a Head Start building gymnasium on the Fond du Lac Band reservation, police said. The suspect apparently shot an attendee in the head, and that man was taken to a hospital, said Derek Randall, the interim police chief in Cloquet, which abuts the reservation and is near Duluth.

Randall said initial reports suggested the shooting was at the school gymnasium, but authorities later learned it happened at the community center, WDIO-TV reported.

The suspect was restrained by funeral-goers until police arrived, and officers recovered a rifle that they believe was used in the attack, said Randall. He said investigators don’t believe it was a random attack.

Randall said the suspect was a 28-year-old Minneapolis man. The victim, a 45-year-old man from Minneapolis, was in Essentia Hospital. Randall said he didn’t believe the man’s wound was life-threatening.

The shooting prompted lockdowns of tribal offices and the reservation’s school, but the lockdowns were later lifted and employees were sent home, said band spokeswoman Rita Aspinwall.

She said the suspected shooter is not among the band’s roughly 4,200 enrolled members.

″(Shootings) happen everywhere, but it especially hurts when it happens in your own community,” Aspinwall said during a news conference.