Minneapolis police say Moturi shooting was preventable; after-action finds gaps in staffing, coordination and warrant execution

Police Chief Brian O'Hara presented an internal after-action review to the Committee of the Whole on May 5, finding that the shooting of Davis Moturi in October 2024 should have been preventable and identifying multiple systemic failures that contributed to the departmentnot stopping the attack.

"The shooting of Mr. Moturi should not have happened. It should have been preventable," Chief O'Hara said, and offered an apology to the victim and family: "We failed Mr. Moturi." The city auditor also completed an independent review that Chief O'Hara said informed the department's analysis.

Commander Ralph Markstrom summarized a 14-month timeline that recorded 43 dispatch (Visinet) entries and 21 police reports (PIMS) documenting repeated harassment and threats from neighbor John Sawchak, including feces incidents, weapons threats and multiple unsuccessful attempts to serve warrants. The assault-investigation unit was operating with far fewer investigators than in earlier years; Markstrom said the assault unit had been staffed with only three investigators and at times as few as two, a capacity that left many cases unassigned or delayed.

MPD described repeated directed patrols and surveillance of the suspect's residence; a reactive team conducted 20-plus surveillance iterations, and surveillance beginning Oct. 24 led to a search-warrant operation executed Oct. 27 that ended in the suspect's surrender and arrest after a multi-unit, multi-hour tactical operation that included drones, LRAD announcements, and an armored vehicle. Commander Thomas Campbell, who oversaw the tactical operation, described risk assessments, perimeter management and negotiation strategies used to minimize escalation.

Investigators and department leadership told the committee the department faced three correlated constraints in the spring and summer of 2024: low sworn staffing levels, an overwhelmed investigations bureau (a high case volume routed to a small assault unit), and a countywide backlog of warrants that made timely service difficult. Markstrom said the Hennepin County warrant backlog numbered in the thousands; MPD leaders described a roughly 18,000 outstanding-warrant figure cited by the county at the time of the review.

The after-action identifies several corrective steps MPD has taken or planned: re-establishing a Violent Criminal Apprehension Team (VCAT) dedicated to locating and arresting wanted violent offenders; increasing the size of the assault-investigations unit (reported as doubled since 2024); improving automated address-flagging and analyst-driven weekly runs to surface repeat problematic addresses to precinct inspectors; stricter documentation requirements for patrol and directed patrols; and a commitment to retrain personnel in arrest-and-warrant policies.

Chief O'Hara and commanders also described a "Neighbor-to-Neighbor" mediation pilot in partnership with the NAACP to attempt earlier, non-police interventions for escalating neighbor disputes. Bureau Chief Ganesha Martin explained the referral flow: a crime analyst runs weekly CAD reports, precinct crime-prevention specialists attempt outreach and, where mediation seems appropriate, refer cases to NAACP mediators for voluntary sessions. MPD said five cases had been referred to the NAACP at the time of the presentation, and the pilot will be assessed at its conclusion.

Council members pressed MPD leaders on why more forceful action or a search warrant had not been sought earlier given the repeated threats and the suspect's documented instability; MPD leaders said the legal prerequisites for forcible entry required reasonable belief the person was in the residence at that moment and other thresholds that commanders weighed. Several members also raised whether bias-motivated elements of the case had been adequately pursued by prosecutors earlier; MPD acknowledged some bias-related charging requests were declined by the county attorney at points in the case.

The council voted to refer the after-action and MPD presentation to the Public Health & Safety Committee for further review and quarterly follow-up, a motion the body approved, and members said they will continue oversight of the department's implementation of reforms.

MPD leaders said their internal review and the auditor's independent review are driving near-term operational changes intended to reduce the risk of a similar failure in the future.