Two Residents Died in a Minneapolis High-Rise. The Officers Who Went In Hit a Haze Nobody Can Explain.

The first call reached Minneapolis police at 4:36 p.m. Wednesday, and it described a single person shot inside a high-rise on the downtown edge of Loring Park. Then the phones kept ringing with reports of more gunfire, Sgt. Garrett Parten said. Officers who ran into the lobby of the building at 15 East Grant Street found wounded people on the floor there, followed the sound of shooting to an upper story, and pushed into what Interim Police Chief Bill Peterson described as "a haze that significantly limited their visibility." Four officers later reported adverse effects from exposure to whatever it was. A day later, city officials still could not say what produced it.

Two residents were killed. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension identified them as Dale Henry Spry, 63, and Muse Abdi Afrah, 61, both of whom lived in the building. One died at the scene and one died at a hospital. Three other civilians were shot and taken to Hennepin County Medical Center. Three Minneapolis officers were hurt — two of them shot, including one hit in the leg and another who went into surgery — and Gov. Tim Walz said Wednesday night that all three are expected to recover fully.

The gunman was identified as Carlton Neal Johnson II, 35, who lived on the ninth floor. BCA Superintendent Drew Evans said Thursday that Johnson is believed to have been shot and killed by responding officers in the ninth-floor hallway; a law enforcement source had told CNN earlier that he likely died of a self-inflicted wound. Court records show Johnson was in the process of being evicted, and a security officer at the building reported that he had made statements in June about using a firearm. Police had been called to the same complex earlier Wednesday over a dispute. "We were familiar with who this individual was," Peterson said.

Inside, residents ran out of options fast. Umecua Agnew, 48, was in an elevator when shots erupted in the lobby. She yanked a little girl back inside as the child stepped toward the doors and mashed the buttons to send the car upward. "I grabbed her back and I hit the button so the elevator could go up, so we wouldn't get shot," she said. The elevator dropped the girl and her mother on the third floor, stopped on the fifth, and finally reached Agnew's eighth-floor landing. She locked her door, went into the bathroom and called her mother while what sounded like gunfire continued in the corridor. About 15 minutes later, officers walked her down eight flights. Across the street, 22-year-old Joshua Curry stepped onto his sixth-floor balcony and filmed officers dragging a victim clear as people scattered. "It was just a mess," he said.

Agents from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives joined the response, and the University of St. Thomas campus a few blocks away issued a shelter-in-place order. By nightfall the intersection was taped off, armored vehicles and ambulances clogged the streets, and officers with long guns and dogs moved in and out of the tower while residents waited outside, unable to go home. "But for their heroic work, the death toll would have been far higher," Mayor Jacob Frey said. Peterson put it differently. "I am just truly sickened and deeply saddened that once again there is a senseless crime of gun violence," he said. The building sits roughly five miles from Annunciation Catholic Church, where a shooter killed two children and wounded 27 people a year ago.