After a gunfight erupted near a St. Paul bar, police found 45 casings from at least three guns.

No one was injured, but vehicles were struck by the gunfire on the West Side early Saturday. A resident in the area also reported that his house was hit by a stray bullet.

Officers responded to El Alamo bar at Robert and Isabel streets about 12:50 a.m. One caller reported hearing 10 to 12 shots, and said people were screaming and running. Another caller reported hearing about 20 shots outside the bar, said Steve Linders, a St. Paul police spokesman.

El Alamo owner Harry “Dutch” Erkenbrack said there had been no problems inside the bar before the shooting, nor had the guns been detected inside the bar. The bar’s security personnel use metal detectors to check people for weapons, he said.

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The two men and people on the other side of the street, who hadn’t been at the bar, exchanged words and the shooting began, Erkenbrack said.

“It was a very quiet night in the bar and there was no indication there would be any trouble,” he said Monday. “Closing time came and everyone left, and that’s when all hell broke loose. I have to believe, from the looks of it, that somebody probably knew that someone would be coming out of the bar at closing time and they had a grudge or something.”

Responding officers saw about 20 people standing on the corner and asked if they heard or saw anything. Not one said they had, Linders said.

Police said they collected shell casings that were spread throughout El Alamo’s parking lot and on the street — 24 spent casings that were 9 mm and two live 9 mm rounds, nine .45-caliber casings and 10 .40-caliber casings.

A witness reported two men were arguing near the bar when gunshots rang out. One male got in a vehicle and another ran off, Linders said.

About five minutes after the shooting was reported, the Minnesota State Patrol stopped a vehicle that went through a red light and almost struck a trooper’s squad car at Sherburne Avenue and Marion Street, according to a search warrant affidavit. Troopers noticed the vehicle had bullet holes in the driver’s-side window and rear windshield, and found an unloaded 9 mm gun under the passenger seat. Two people were arrested.

Police are investigating whether the people in the vehicle were linked to the West Side gunfire, according to Linders. The search warrant, which a judge granted, was for DNA samples and fingerprints from the 33-year-old driver to determine if he handled the gun.

A spokesman for the St. Paul Department of Safety and Inspections, which licenses bars, said the matter remains under investigation and that the bar has been cooperative.

“We’ve never had a shooting inside the bar or a knifing,” Erkenbrack said. He said that when problems have occurred, it’s been after the bar closed at 1 a.m.

In July, DSI waived a $500 fine and instead modified and added conditions on the bar’s license involving security measures. That action came after police asked the bar to provide surveillance tapes in April and found the time stamp on the tapes was inaccurate — a violation of a license condition, according to a DSI settlement agreement.

S.M. Chavey contributed to this report.