Police Found Him Showing a Gun in the Lobby in June. Prosecutors Said There Wasn't Enough to Take It Away.

MINNEAPOLIS — Ten weeks before Carlton Neal Johnson II shot six people at the Shoreline Plaza apartments and was killed by police on the ninth floor, Minneapolis officers stood in that same building and looked at his gun.

On June 25, police responded to a report that Johnson was "displaying a firearm to another individual," the Hennepin County Attorney's Office said. Officers determined he held a valid Minnesota permit to carry and that the gun had stayed in his waistband, and they left it there. Prosecutors later concluded there was "insufficient evidence" to charge him — and "insufficient evidence" to pursue an extreme risk protection order, the state's red-flag mechanism for temporarily stripping firearms from someone deemed dangerous.

Court filings in an eviction case describe more. Building management was trying to remove Johnson for lease violations including an alleged assault of another resident on March 23. On June 11, attorney Laurel Pugh wrote, Johnson allegedly walked around the property carrying a gun and "entered the management office and openly displayed the firearm" to staff. His history with law enforcement also included domestic-related cases and allegations that he threatened to kill a woman and her child, along with a years-old court order that temporarily barred him from possessing firearms. None of his convictions automatically disqualified him from carrying, and Minnesota gun-rights attorneys say authorities had other avenues available to restrict his access.

The shooting began outside the building on Sept. 2 as an ordinary child custody exchange, said Drew Evans, superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, who called it a case of domestic violence. Johnson shot the mother of the child in the leg; the child ran to bystanders and was not physically hurt. Johnson went back inside and shot two employees on the first floor, one critically. He rode the elevator to the ninth floor, where he had an apartment, and killed two residents: Dale Henry Spry, 63, and Muse A. Afrah, 61.

Officers arrived after a 911 call just after 4:30 p.m. and followed the sound of gunfire up the stairwell, killing Johnson in two exchanges. Three officers were hurt, two of them shot: Joseph Michnowski, on the force since 2021, and Yahye Ahmed, an officer since November 2024. Both are expected to recover. A haze that responding officers described inside the building was likely an exploding fire extinguisher, Mayor Jacob Frey said. An officer's tourniquet probably saved the life of the woman shot outside.

Interim Police Chief Bill Peterson declined to second-guess the prosecutors who passed on the red-flag petition, noting that Johnson's record before this year consisted largely of driving violations and parking citations. "Based on the information we had, we were taking the right steps, I believe, to prevent something like this from happening," Peterson said. "Hindsight is 20-20."