UPDATE: Man fatally shot in van in St. Paul was 23-year-old

A man is dead after a shooting Thursday night in St. Paul’s Summit-University neighborhood, police say.

Officers responded about 8:45 p.m. to a report of shots fired in the 700 block of Carroll Avenue. Police found a man sitting in the driver’s seat of a van. He had been shot in the head, said Steve Linders, a St. Paul police spokesman.

The officers provided first aid while St. Paul Fire Department paramedics were en route, but the man was pronounced dead at the scene.

No one has been arrested, Linders said Friday morning. It’s unclear whether the shooter was on foot or in a vehicle.

The man’s identity has not yet been released. The Ramsey County medical examiner will determine his cause of death.

Police asked that anyone with information about the shooting call investigators at 651-266-5650.

Thursday’s homicide — St. Paul’s fifth of 2019 — happened in the same area where a 19-year-old man was fatally shot last year.

Wilbert E’lee Harris-McCalister was in the back seat of a car at Avon Street and Carroll Avenue on Sept. 7 when he was shot. In that case, an attempted robbery during a marijuana deal ended with a shootout, according to charges filed in the case.

“The neighborhood has been through a lot,” Linders said. “Our Western District officers and other units have been working closely with people living in that area and we’re all focused on the same thing and that’s to keep the Summit-University neighborhood safe for everyone.”

Addressing gun violence is the police department’s top priority, Linders said.

Reports of shots fired are down about 3 percent this year compared with last year. And the number of people who have been shot has also declined — there have been 14 people shot this year versus 22 at the same time in 2018, Linders said.