In the predawn quiet of July 20, 2025, 19-year-old Darnell Hawkins Mapp, a male and Black/African American from St. Paul, was shot multiple times near the river's edge at North Mississippi Regional Park, by 5116 Mississippi Drive North in Minneapolis. Officers responded shortly after 3 a.m. to reports of gunfire; lifesaving efforts failed, and he was pronounced dead at the scene at 3:54 a.m.
The Hennepin County Medical Examiner ruled the death a homicide, listing multiple gunshot wounds as the cause.
In the hours and days that followed, investigators canvassed the area around Mississippi Drive North and Lyndale Avenue North, where people had gathered overnight. Early public updates offered few specifics; police disclosed that a 19-year-old man had been killed and that the shooter fled before officers arrived. Identification came later: the victim was Darnell Hawkins Mapp, age 19. Memorial posts and local reports marked the loss while authorities appealed for information.
Weeks later, charging documents named a suspect. Prosecutors charged 27-year-old Seneca Lee Jones in the shooting death of Darnell Hawkins Mapp, age 19, and a judge authorized a nationwide arrest warrant. Reporting on the unsealed complaint described witness accounts placing Jones at an after-party in the park and referenced a feud with the 19-year-old victim that allegedly involved stolen property. As of those reports, Jones had not been taken into custody and authorities warned he was considered armed and dangerous.
The case remains defined by the suddenness of the violence and the unanswered questions it left behind: a young life ended alongside the river before dawn; a homicide ruling that fixed the grim facts of the morning; and a man charged but not yet arrested, with investigators urging the public to help bridge the distance between accusation and accountability.
