The Minneapolis Police Department issued an apology for their failure to respond appropriately to 34-year-old Davis Moturi’s repeated complaints of racist harassment from his white neighbor, John Herbert Sawchak.
According to The Guardian, Moturi was attacked by Sawchak on Oct. 23, who shot Moturi, leaving him with a fractured spine, two broken ribs, and a concussion. A day later, criminal charges were filed against Sawchak, but officers waited until Oct. 28 to arrest him.
Brian O’Hara, the department’s police chief, issued an apology to reporters.
“We failed this victim 100%,” O’Hara said. “And to that victim, I say I am sorry that this happened to you.”
Moturi’s shooting follows the conclusion of a Justice Department investigation that surmised that the Minneapolis Police Department allegedly had a “pattern or practice” of discrimination against Black Americans.
Moturi bought his home in 2023, and since that time, either he or his wife reportedly called the department at least 19 times to report Sawchak for vandalism, property destruction, harassment, and threats of physical harm while he spewed racist slurs.
After the police failed to arrest Sawchak three times, he allegedly shot Moturi in the neck from an upstairs window in his home as Moturi pruned a tree near his property line with a chainsaw, which Sawchak had allegedly planted with his mother, according to O’Hara.
Police explained waiting five days to arrest Sawchak by saying they wanted to arrest him peacefully because they knew he had guns and was mentally ill.
Minnesota officials, including Minnesota state Sen. Omar Fateh, indicted the police’s inaction. “Despite three warrants, MPD ignored his pleas, highlighting racial inequities. I demand an independent investigation and accountability,” Fateh wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, as he posted an image of his official statement regarding the police department.
“The shooting of Davis Moturi is a tragic and deeply troubling failure of our public safety system. Mr. Moturi and his family repeatedly sought protection from law enforcement, reporting escalating harassment, racialized threats, and stalking by a neighbor–only to be given the runaround while their tormentor, John Sawchak, continued to escalate without police intervention in spite of three active warrants for his arrest,” Fateh’s official statement read.
Fateh continued, “The Minneapolis Police Department’s refusal to make an arrest on the basis of avoiding a violent conflict stands in stark contrast to other instances in which Black men have been killed by MPD when suspects involved were not reported to be mentally ill and alternatives were, in fact, available, such as in the shooting of Amir Locke which was the result of a no-knock raid on three separate apartments in search of a murderer. It wasn`t deemed too dangerous then. What is so different about this case?”
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