St. Paul's violent month culminates in residential homicide

​St. Paul is experiencing a remarkably peaceful year in terms of violent crime. Before last night, the city's had only five homicides in 2011. But the month of October has been marred by a sudden spree of violence, which finally turned deadly last night when a man was killed during an altercation at his home.

St. Paul Police were called to a residential neighborhood, where through the window they witnessed two men struggling with each other. After cops burst through the door, they found one of the men dead. The other was forcibly subdued, and has been taken into custody.

The sixth St. Paul homicide of 2011 comes near the tail end of a rare time of violence in that city: Aside from last night's killing, eight people in the city have been shot during the month of October.

Neighbors say the site of last night's homicide, which took place at Winter Street and North Capitol Heights, is a home that houses adults with mental illness or substance abuse problems, the Pioneer Press reports. The man taken into custody is described as a 44-year-old "acquaintance" of the deceased.

After the altercation with his housemate, and then another with police who forcefully took the man into custody, the suspect was taken to Regions Hospital, where he was treated for non-life threatening injuries.

Given its isolated nature, last night's death is almost certainly not related to any of the other violence that's gone on in St. Paul this month, which has left eight different city residents with gunshot wounds.

Indeed, it's not known which if any of those other episodes are even related to each other, with St. Paul Police spokesman John Keating telling the Pioneer Press that police have not established links between the shootings.

The most recent shooting in that run came Wednesday night, when a man was shot in the arm in the Payne-Phalen neighborhood, which was also the site of three shootings on Saturday.

No arrests have been made in either of those shootings.