Neighbors recall hearing active shooter on Minnehaha Avenue, suspect in hospital

Residents of Minneapolis' Hiawatha neighborhood reported being jolted awake Saturday morning by a frightening call as a gunman opened fire in an apartment building on Minnehaha Avenue.

“We were fast asleep because it was about 4:30 a.m. and then we heard a loud bang,” said Angie Theis, who has lived in the area for 22 years. “There were several shots fired, you could hear glass breaking, just a lot of noise.”

Theis and her husband, Jeff, who were walking their dogs along Minnehaha Avenue, which was cordoned off with police tape, recalled the loud noises continuing unabated for about an hour.

“I initially thought it was someone setting off explosives, dynamite or fireworks or something,” he said. “So we came down and they said someone had shot in the apartment.”

Not far away, Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigators could be seen collecting evidence near 4052 Minnehaha Avenue, where the shots came from.

“This was an incredibly unpredictable, frightening and rapidly evolving situation,” Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara told reporters.

He praised the courage of his officers to respond “from across the city.”

The chief says police first went into action around 10:30 p.m. Friday night when they responded to several 911 calls about a man carrying a shotgun along Minnehaha Avenue.

But he was nowhere to be found until the shots rang out hours later.

Again, O'Hara said, there were numerous emergency calls from the building itself and from neighbors.

“Residents of the apartment building reported that shots were fired in their building and that they could hear people banging on their doors and glass shattering,” the police chief said.

Arriving officers discovered bullet holes in a front door, cartridge cases in a hallway and, after finding an apartment door open, discovered a shotgun lying on the floor.

O'Hara said more gunshots were heard from the north end of the building and officers began evacuating residents as they approached the gunman.

“This is the kind of horrific call-out that Minneapolis police officers never want to be called out on. But they responded bravely,” said Mayor Jacob Frey. “To be put in a situation where you don't know what to expect, where you're either facing a shotgun or, in this case, an AK-47, to say it's scary would be a massive understatement.”

According to police, officers managed to detain the gunman in a north stairwell while they continued evacuation efforts.

A statement from the MPD said the shooter “regularly fired shots with an AK-47 type rifle.”

But a muzzle flash gave away his position, police said.

“Officers located a suspect in the north stairwell and one of the officers fired his weapon once,” O'Hara said. “The suspect was then disarmed.”

The chief says the suspect, described only as a 40-year-old man who lived in the building, owned the rifle, a .45-caliber pistol and a backpack containing extra ammunition and loaded magazines.

O'Hara says the suspect was also wearing a military-style flak jacket.

He was taken to HCMC with a jaw injury, where his condition is stabilized.

“I mean, these are the situations you see all over the country where an active shooter does the worst and a lot of people die,” Frey said. “That didn't happen. The fact that more people weren't hurt is a miracle.”

Police say there have been no previous encounters with the suspect.

Investigators are now looking for a motive in this case.

At the moment, Jeff Theis says he is happy that the shooter was caught and no one lost their life.

“We didn't know if (the suspect) was going from room to room shooting people, we had no idea what was going on,” he explained. “Especially with that kind of equipment, it really could have been a lot worse.”

Saturday's shooting followed a week of violence and a rise in the city's murder rate.

“We were hoping our city would get a break from this violence,” O'Hara said. “It's been a trying week for everyone, for the community and for the department. But I'm glad everyone here is going to survive.”