A gunman who had been evicted from his high-rise apartment hours earlier opened fire inside the building in downtown Minneapolis on Wednesday afternoon, killing two people and wounding three police officers before he was found dead, in one of the most violent single incidents the city has seen in years.
Officers were called to a high-rise near Loring Park around 4:36 p.m. after an initial report of one person shot. Interim Police Chief Bill Peterson said that report "was quickly updated to an active shooter situation" as officers arrived and heard continued gunfire inside the tower.
A chaotic response inside the tower
Officers who entered the building followed the sound of gunshots to an upper floor, where they encountered a thick haze that severely limited visibility, according to NBC News. Three officers were hurt: one was shot twice in the abdomen and taken into surgery, a second was shot in the leg, and a third suffered a non-gunshot injury. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said all three were "expected to make a full recovery." The FBI and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives joined Minneapolis police at the scene.
Mayor Jacob Frey praised the responding officers, saying they "rescued victims, brought people to safety ... all while getting shot at themselves."
"But for their heroic work, the death toll would have been far higher."
Jacob Frey, Minneapolis mayor
Attorney General Keith Ellison called the shooting "horrifying" and pledged his office's support to investigators. Accounts of the overall toll shifted through the evening as the story developed. Early wire updates from CNN and NBC cited one confirmed death and roughly five to six people hurt; by Wednesday night, CBS Minnesota and Al Jazeera were reporting two civilians killed and six others injured, including the three officers, with the gunman also found dead — a toll that would put total fatalities at three if the shooter is counted alongside the victims. Minneapolis police had not released a single, final count as of Wednesday night, and UBStandard is treating the two-civilian-dead, six-injured figure as the best-supported tally pending an official summary.
An eviction, and warnings that went back months
Police identified the suspected shooter as Carlton Johnson II, 35, a resident of the building. According to court filings reviewed by KSTP, building management had sought to terminate Johnson's lease since June after he allegedly assaulted another resident, displayed a firearm and threatened to kill someone — the sixth documented complaint against him since January. Johnson was given a second chance on condition that he keep any firearm concealed on the property, with an eviction hearing scheduled for September 11. He was formally evicted from the unit earlier Wednesday, hours before the shooting. Court records also show a prior domestic violence conviction. Police said they were familiar with Johnson, though investigators had not confirmed a motive.
The shooting adds to a difficult stretch for gun violence in the Upper Midwest and comes weeks after a deadly shooting at a Minneapolis Catholic school, keeping the issue high on the agenda for state and local officials as they head into the fall legislative session. It is also the second mass-casualty shooting nationally this week, after a gunman was killed inside a Waynesboro, Virginia, elementary school on the same day; that incident left one adult injured and no children harmed.
That six documented complaints accumulated against a single tenant over eight months before a hearing date was even set is likely to draw scrutiny from tenant-safety advocates and city officials in the days ahead, particularly given Johnson's prior domestic violence conviction. Neither Minneapolis police nor the property's management company had detailed publicly, as of Wednesday night, what security steps, if any, were taken in the building after the earlier warning signs were reported.
The investigation continues, with federal agents assisting Minneapolis police in processing the scene and determining how the gunman died — a detail authorities said remained unclear as of Wednesday night. Because the suspect did not survive, no criminal charges are expected over the shooting itself; the case will instead likely feed into a broader examination of how the eviction and complaint history at the building was handled in the months beforehand.
