Shooting suspect arrested after overnight SWAT operation in south Minneapolis
Go Deeper.
Create an account or log in to save stories.
Like this?
Thanks for liking this story! We have added it to a list of your favorite stories.
A 54-year-old man charged with shooting and wounding a neighbor last week in south Minneapolis was arrested early Monday following an hours-long SWAT operation.
John Sawchak has been charged with attempted murder, stalking and harassment stemming from racial bias, among other counts. Court filings allege last Wednesday’s shooting on the 3500 block of Grand Avenue followed “almost constant harassment of the victim and his wife” by Sawchak since they purchased their home more than a year ago.
The Minneapolis Police Department’s handling of the case — over the months that the neighbors reported threats, and over the days between Sawchak being charged and taken into custody — have drawn criticism, including from some city council members.
Sawchak is being held at the Hennepin County Jail ahead of an initial court appearance scheduled for Tuesday.
Turn Up Your Support
MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all.
Wednesday’s shooting
Sawchak was charged Thursday in the previous day’s shooting of his neighbor while the neighbor was trimming a tree in his front yard.
That neighbor — Davis Moturi — suffered a fractured spine and at least two fractured ribs. According to court documents, Moturi and his wife had previously called police at least 19 times since they bought their home in September 2023 to report “vandalism, property destruction/theft, harassment, hate speech, verbal threats, and threatened physical assaults.”
Among the incidents previously reported to police: On Oct. 8, Sawchak allegedly screamed racial slurs at Moturi and threatened to kill him while brandishing a knife. Six days later, the criminal complaint alleges, Sawchak pointed a gun at Moturi.
Moturi spoke with KARE 11 from his hospital bed last week.
“I don’t call the police for fun. I call because I want my family to be safe,” he said.
At a Friday news conference, Minneapolis Police chief Brian O’Hara said police had made multiple attempts over months to contact Sawchak at his home in the wake of the reported threats, but weren’t able to do so. He described Sawchak as someone who has mental illness and was known to have access to firearms — and he said police wanted to avoid a violent situation by arresting him outside his residence.
Moturi questioned the police department’s handling of the threats.
“If you’re saying you're scared, what does that do to me?” he told KARE 11. “You have this body armor. You have professional training. When I call for assistance, when I called (about) having a knife pointed at me, I had to wait hours and hours and hours.”
Arrest early Monday
After the shooting, and after Sawchak was charged, O’Hara said there was a delay in arresting him as the department spoke with Sawchak’s family members and a psychiatrist to gather information.
“We identified issues of concern, including issues that the individual had both firearms inside and also had knowledge of improvised explosive devices,” O’Hara said at a news conference early Monday.
He said officers exhausted other options for resolving the situation without force, leading to the SWAT response overnight. O’Hara said Sawchak emerged from his residence just before 1:30 a.m. Monday, after police told him they were about to use gas in the building.
“This is an example of what de-escalation looks like,” O’Hara said. At the time of the news conference, he said officers were still searching the residence and had not yet recovered firearms believed to be inside.
City council criticism
Several Minneapolis City Council members also questioned the department’s response to the threats and in the wake of the shooting.
“We have to take violent criminals off the street,” council member Andrea Jenkins told KARE 11 on Friday. “I’m not a police officer. I don’t know how that gets done, but I know it needs to get done.”
“This shooting highlights a number of troubling trends in our city,” council member Emily Koski wrote in a message to constituents on Sunday. “Our inability to provide help and intervention to residents in need and protect our residents from harm is unconscionable. Worse yet, our inability to problem solve in times of crisis without hiding behind excuses, blame shifting and unnecessary unacceptable rhetoric is unjustifiable.”
“This situation highlights a very serious, very real gap in our public safety system, in our services and in our approach to keeping our residents safe,” Koski wrote. “There must be a reasonable path forward that doesn’t force a choice between inaction and the extreme.”
Mayor Jacob Frey, speaking alongside O’Hara at the early Monday news conference, said “our officers did this the right way.”
“I know there have been several individuals out there, including council members, telling them to immediately barge in — to do this the wrong way,” Frey said. “I stand with our police officers. Doing this the right way takes courage.”
O’Hara, in a news conference earlier in the weekend before Sawchak was arrested, acknowledged that the department had “failed (Moturi) 100 percent because that should not have happened to him. The Minneapolis police somehow did not act urgently enough to prevent that individual from being shot — and to that victim, I say I am sorry that this happened to you.”
“But it could not be anything further from the truth to say that we did nothing, or that we just simply don’t care,” O’Hara continued. “That’s not true. But we failed to act urgently enough to prevent that shooting from happening — and unfortunately, he’s not the only victim where that’s been the case. We have not been able to respond as urgently enough as we should for countless victims in this city. I am not here to use staffing as an excuse, but I am telling you that is the reality of your police department today.”
O’Hara said a shortage of officers “impacts everything that we do.”
This is a developing story; check back for updates.