By Liz Sawyer and Paul Walsh

Source Star Tribune

Two weeks after a gunman’s mass shooting in a downtown Minneapolis apartment tower left three people dead and several others wounded, police released four brief video clips from officers’ body-worn cameras that show them confronting the armed suspect in the close quarters on the ninth floor, where he immediately fired upon them.

The videos made public on Wednesday afternoon appear consistent with earlier accounts of the shooting in the Loring Park neighborhood on Sept. 2 that left gunman Carlton Johnson III and two fellow residents dead and six others wounded.

The incident began about 4:30 p.m. with Johnson, 35, shooting and wounding his ex-girlfriend, 33-year-old Nyemuoch Gatkuoth Pal, at the building’s entrance during a custody exchange of their 5-year-old daughter before he wounded two apartment staff members on the ground level.

From the main level, Johnson went to the ninth floor and killed Dale Henry Spry, 63, and Muse Abdi Afrah, 61, as they exited their units. Police arrived on the floor, where Johnson shot and wounded two officers before he died in the exchange of gunfire.

Officer Yahye Ahmed’s video provides the most comprehensive view of the initial encounter with Johnson, as the officers enter the ninth floor from a stairwell with officer Joseph Michnowski in the lead.

As they pass a bank of elevators, Johnson emerges from a corner with a gun and fires several shots before retreating. Michnowski then turns right into a hallway while Ahmed and the others retreat back into the stairwell.

Johnson cannot be seen, but he again exchanges gunfire with the officers. Ahmed retreats as the hallway fills with chemicals from a fire extinguisher pierced by gunshots.

In redacted video from Michnowski’s body camera, the blurred body of one of the men Johnson killed is captured on the floor after Michnowski exchanges fire with Johnson and takes cover, sprinting to the opposite end of the hallway.

“Shooter’s on the ninth floor,” Michnowski says. “I took some rounds.”

More shots can be heard from a distance as officers were heard on the radio saying “sounds like fully auto” and “officer got hit!”

Officer Liban Ibrahim’s body camera shows four officers in the stairwell entering the ninth floor, where they encounter Johnson several feet away and exchange gunfire before they retreat back to the stairwell.

“Joe are you OK?” one of the officers asks, calling for Michnowski. “Can you see Joe?” Ahmed, peering around the corner aiming a rifle, shakes his head.

Gunfire erupts again, and Ahmed retreats back into the stairwell as a cloud of smoke envelops them.

“I got hit!” he yells.

“Where, where?”

“My leg!”

In addition to Ahmed’s gunshot wound, Michnowski was struck twice in the stomach by gunfire, a bullet piercing just below his protective vest. A third officer sustained minor injuries after being cut by glass. All are expected to recover.

A flurry of 911 calls came in during the volleys of gunfire and afterward, including one from Charles Russell Scott, the maintenance supervisor who was shot.

“I’ve been shot. I’m bleeding badly. ... Hurry!”

Scott tells emergency dispatch that he’s in the lobby bathroom and that “the manager’s been shot too.”

Scott discloses that he’s been shot in the leg, and “I’m gonna pass out.”

The dispatcher tells Scott that he’s going to speak with a paramedic during the call, but he was no longer responding.

One caller was urgently concerned for the child who was the subject of the custody handoff near where he mother was shot.

“She’s 5 years old,” a relative of Pal’s told the emergency dispatcher. “So I’m like, dude, do they have her by herself? She’s gotta have somebody there with her.”

The dispatcher responds, “I understand, I will have them reach out to you as soon as they can, OK?”

Just hours before the shooting began, a building employee called police to report that Johnson, who had an eviction order pending, had emailed staff the night before threatening to shoot them. According to a person familiar with the case, staff expressed feeling safe at that time.

Johnson got off at least 25 shots, while police fired at least 30 times during the confrontation inside the complex at 15 E. Grant St., according to recent court filings by the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

Police found in his apartment “management complaint related documents [and] eviction related documents,” along with three boxes of 9-millimeter ammunition, a few loose rounds in a dresser drawer, two empty holsters and three magazines, the court filings said. A gun was recovered by police in the ninth-floor lobby.

Along with Pal, Johnson shot and wounded longtime property manager Jan Peterson, 56, of Blaine, and maintenance worker Charles Russell Scott, 68, of Minneapolis.

Abby Simons of the Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this report.

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