Dinkytown residents saw lit fireworks aimed at apartment buildings, windows hit by fireworks and a firework lit underneath a car on the night of July 4. 

The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office arrested and charged over two dozen people for rioting while armed with dangerous weapons and fleeing police. An additional four people were charged on July 10.

Dinkytown resident Claudia Purdon said she heard fireworks go off near her apartment building around 11 p.m.

“I was getting ready to go to bed and all of a sudden I heard what I first thought was a bomb,” Purdon said.

The fireworks went off for around two hours, Purdon said. People were lighting fireworks toward her building that came “inches away” from her window on the fourth floor.

“My whole room lit up,” Purdon said. 

According to a statement from the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD), the police found online invitations on social media on July 3 encouraging people to come to Minneapolis to participate in “these egregious, dangerous and frankly idiotic acts.”

MPD Chief Brian O’Hara said in the statement that throwing fireworks presents a clear danger to everyone involved.

“It is dangerous to the people and police officers who were targeted, and it’s dangerous to the people committing these crimes,” O’Hara said in the statement. 

On the night of July 4 into the early hours of July 5, MPD arrested 30 people, all ranging from the ages of 15 to 23. No one was seriously injured in Dinkytown, and there were fewer reports of gun violence throughout the city on July 4 this year than in previous years. 

Purdon said she stayed awake while the fireworks went off.

“At one point I was watching, and the kids lit the firework and threw it under a car,” Purdon said. “It blew up underneath the car, and there was smoke. It was crazy.”

According to an article from the Star Tribune, someone throwing fireworks threw one at an officer and it landed under a parked car. When it exploded, it burned the officer’s skin.

Purdon said she was not in Dinkytown the rest of the weekend but did not hear about any more major incidents with fireworks.

Colton Emerson, a recent University of Minnesota graduate and resident of Dinkytown, said he saw some people shooting fireworks at each other near Van Cleve Park in the Como neighborhood on the night of July 5.

“As I’m walking past the softball fields and baseball fields next to Van Cleve, I just heard, like, a pop,” Emerson said.

The fireworks were about six or seven feet off the ground and people were chasing each other playing what looked like “firework tag,” Emerson said. Emerson added he did not think it was related to the events on July 4. 

There were no fireworks going off in Dinkytown on July 5, Emerson said. 

“There wasn’t much going on in Dinky firework-wise, but there was an elevated police presence,” Emerson said.