Abdifatah Abdillahi, 23, of Roseville, Minnesota, was fatally shot shortly after 1:30 a.m. on January 1, 2024. The shooting happened during a New Year’s gathering in a home on the 1600 block of Van Buren Avenue in St. Paul’s Hamline-Midway neighborhood. Officers responding to calls about people needing to be removed from the gathering then received shots fired reports; one caller said they were taking an injured person to the hospital. When police arrived at the house they found evidence of a shooting but no victim; Abdillahi died soon after arriving at United Hospital.

As of January 18, 2024, no arrests had been announced in the St. Paul case. Investigators say the gun used in Abdillahi’s killing was linked to a separate homicide on January 15, 2024, at the Quarry Shopping Center in northeast Minneapolis. In that Minneapolis case, 20-year-old Barqadle Abdullahi Barqadle is charged with second-degree murder, and the person associated with the gun in the St. Paul incident reportedly told police they had given the weapon to Barqadle.

Anyone with information about Abdillahi’s killing is asked to contact the St. Paul Police Department at 651-266-5650. Did anyone at the gathering or nearby that night see something that could help investigators?