Police shoot, kill man in north Minneapolis confrontation
Updated: 2:45 p.m. | Posted: 6:07 a.m.
Minneapolis police early Friday morning shot and killed a man in the city’s Hawthorne neighborhood following a confrontation.
Police spokesperson John Elder said officers responded to calls of shots fired on the 2400 block of Emerson Avenue North just before 3 a.m. When they arrived, they found a woman wounded by gunfire and an armed suspect.
A Minneapolis police official with knowledge of the incident said the man shot his girlfriend once in the shoulder and that she was lying in the street when police arrived and saw the man with the gun. She was taken to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
The body cameras of the two officers involved were on at the time of the shooting and the officers, now on standard administrative leave, are cooperating in the investigation, Mayor Jacob Frey and police chief Medaria Arradondo told reporters early Friday afternoon. The officers were not injured.
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Frey said there were children at the scene but he did not describe their relationships to the man who was killed or the woman who was wounded. They were unharmed and are safe in the custody of a guardian, Frey added.
The mayor said he would be reaching out to the neighborhood over the coming weeks.
Juntell Gunn, who lives nearby, said she was awakened by the gunfire."First I heard the first shot in my sleep and I had my husband wake up to see if it was what it was and I heard the lady two minutes later screaming."
Minneapolis police union head Lt. Bob Kroll said he was confident the investigation will find the officers were justified in using deadly force. The suspect, he said, “gave the officers no other option to defend themselves, the shooting victim, and innocent bystanders from further harm.”
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is investigating the incident. Frey said he would press the BCA to do its work quickly.