A homicide investigation is underway after a man was shot in St. Paul’s North End Monday night.

After the shooting, a driver taking the victim to the hospital crashed into another vehicle in downtown St. Paul, police said.

Police were notified about the shooting at about 7:30 p.m., when a man called and reported he was assaulted in his vehicle in the 500 block of Front Avenue. He said he shot at the man assaulting him and may have injured him, according to Sgt. Mike Ernster, a police spokesman. Police later arrested the 25-year-old from Minneapolis on suspicion of murder.

The caller said the man got into a red vehicle, which left the area. Soon after, there was a crash about two miles away involving a red vehicle and another vehicle at 12th and Cedar streets. A 26-year-old St. Paul man with a gunshot injury was inside the vehicle.

Good Samaritans in the area assisted officers with first aid while St. Paul Fire Department medics responded, Ernster said. Medics pronounced Tajai Evans, who’d been shot, dead at the scene.

The driver of the other vehicle reported minor injuries.

Police are investigating what led to the shooting.

The man who initially called about the assault spoke with homicide investigators Monday night, and he was booked into the Ramsey County jail early Tuesday. Police also spoke with the man who’d driven Evans in the red vehicle. Investigators “are talking to anybody they can who has information about this case,” Ernster said.

Investigators presented a case to the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office Tuesday for review and charging consideration.

The homicide was the 27th of the year in St. Paul and came on the heels of a Sunday night homicide. There were 28 homicides in the city at this time last year.

The St. Paul Police Department counts 26 homicides this year because the department’s records are for cases investigated by the city’s police department. Another homicide in St. Paul this year was investigated by Metro Transit Police.

In Sunday’s homicide, prosecutors charged a 64-year-old man Monday with fatally stabbing another resident of his apartment building in the Summit-University area.