ST. PAUL -- St. Paul Police say concern for public safety led officers to shoot and kill a bear roaming the urban Frogtown neighborhood.
Officers were dispatched around 12:30 a.m. Sunday on a report of a black bear walking the streets. Police tracked the bear as it climbed a tree, set up a perimeter and contacted the Department of Natural Resources. Once the bear came down, it was killed.
Sgt. Paul Paulos tells WCCO Radio that the DNR advised them to shoot the bear instead of tranquilizing it. He says authorities were concerned about the risk to neighbors coming out to see why police were there.
Paulos says this is the second recent incident of a bear shot inside city limits. The other was last December in the Dayton's Bluff neighborhood near downtown.
