The gunman in a deadly Minneapolis shooting had left a long trail of warning signs

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The man who carried out Wednesday’s deadly shooting in a Minneapolis apartment building had threatened his neighbors, repeatedly showed off his pistol and warned he was planning to shoot people, according to building residents, court documents and law enforcement officials.

The building’s owners were trying to evict him. At least one person had asked for a restraining order to be placed on him. The police investigated him in June for displaying a weapon, but the county attorney’s office decided not to file any charges.

Late Wednesday afternoon, Carlton Johnson shot and killed two of his neighbors and left five more people — two police officers, an ex-girlfriend and two building employees — injured. He was killed, officials said, by police officers who raced into the building just 2 minutes and 26 seconds after the first call to the city’s 911 system.

In Johnson’s building, he was known for his drinking, his anger and the pistol he kept tucked into his waistband.

“As soon as I heard the shots I knew who it would be,” said Chris Miller, who lives in the building on the edge of downtown Minneapolis, in a dense neighborhood where luxury highrises bump up against low-income residences. Miller said Johnson, 35, had showed him his pistol a few days earlier, saying he planned to shoot his ex-girlfriend and two building managers because of the eviction threat. Miller reported the threat to building managers, though it’s not clear what happened after that.

The shooting began about 4:30 p.m. just outside the building’s entrance during an arranged custody handoff, when Johnson shot and wounded a woman believed to be the mother of his child, said Drew Evans, superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. The child was not injured.

Johnson then shot two building employees and took an elevator to the 9th floor where he killed two building residents before police killed him. Evans said it was unclear if Johnson was targeting the residents or had simply encountered them in the hallway. Two Minneapolis police officers were hit by gunfire.

It was unclear how many of the injured victims remained hospitalized Thursday afternoon.

“This is once again a situation where domestic violence is central to a really terrible situation,” Evans told reporters.

Court documents say Johnson was facing eviction and had threatened a fellow resident with a gun in the months leading up to the shooting.

Earlier Thursday, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said Minneapolis Police had investigated a June 25 encounter where Johnson had displayed a weapon but kept it in his waistband. The police said he had a legal permit to carry the weapon, and the office decided not to file the charges because there was “insufficient evidence to prove a charge beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Moriarty’s office also declined to pursue an emergency order to remove Johnson’s weapon.

Court records show that at least one woman who had a child with Johnson filed a restraining order against him. In 2023, the woman accused Johnson of threatening to kill her in expletive-laden text messages after she told police that he had sexually assaulted her two years earlier. In the restraining order, which was granted, the woman said Johnson used over 10 different cell phone numbers to contact her and repeatedly impersonated a police officer to try to coerce her into sharing her location. The woman who filed that restraining order did not appear to be the same woman shot Wednesday.

Interim Police Chief Bill Peterson defended the police response to Johnson’s record and said they only recently knew of many of the incidents.

“Hindsight is 20/20,” he said. “We’re dealing with these incidents and the large volume of cases that are coming in, and we’re trying to pick and choose which ones we investigate, how much time, energy and resources we commit to it.”

Residents, though, knew Johnson well.

Julius Bailey was sitting with a friend just outside the building entrance when he heard gunshots and saw Johnson holding a pistol. He began running after he heard a woman screaming, counting eight shots as he headed for safety.

Bailey, who moved into the building in June, said he went out of his way to avoid Johnson.

“I could tell he was trouble,” he said.

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Golden reported from Seattle and Rico from Atlanta. Associated Press reporters Safiyah Riddle in Los Angeles and Jacqueline GaNun in Lansing, Michigan, contributed to this report.