Minnesota Shooting Erupts | Gunman Opens Fire on Minneapolis Police

The Officer Who Arrived to Help

At first, it looked like another emergency call.

A report of people being shot.

A Minneapolis police officer responding to a dangerous scene.

A man lying injured in the street.

And then, in a matter of seconds, everything changed.

Officer Jamal Mitchell had only just arrived.

He did not know that the injured man he was approaching was allegedly the person responsible for the violence that had already unfolded inside a nearby apartment.

He did not know that the man was still armed.

He did not know that the situation was about to become one of the most devastating moments of his career.

What happened next was captured in police body-camera footage.

The footage is difficult to watch—not because it shows a long confrontation, but because it shows how quickly a seemingly simple act of assistance can become a deadly encounter.

Officer Mitchell was responding to help.

Instead, he became the next victim.

And behind those few seconds of body-camera footage is a much larger story: an apartment shooting, a desperate attempt to escape, a wounded gunman still carrying a firearm, terrified civilians, firefighters forced to take cover, and other officers racing toward a scene where one of their own was already down.

This is the story of what happened on May 30, 2024, in Minneapolis.

A Normal Afternoon Turns Violent

The violence began inside an apartment on the 2200 block of Blaisdell Avenue South in Minneapolis.

According to the later investigation by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and the Hennepin County Attorney's Office, Mustafa Ahmed Mohamed was inside the apartment with several other people when a dispute erupted.

Two men, Mohamed Aden and Osman Jimale, were shot.

A woman inside the apartment called 911.

That emergency call would set off a chain of events that would ultimately involve police officers, firefighters, civilians and an armed suspect moving through the neighborhood.

Investigators later concluded that Mohamed was responsible for the shootings inside the apartment. One of the victims died at the scene, while the other was transported to a hospital and later died. Ballistic evidence subsequently linked the handgun recovered from Mohamed to the shooting inside the apartment.

But the violence did not end inside the apartment.

The man investigators say had just shot two people was now outside.

And he still had a gun.

The Man in the Street

After leaving the apartment, Mohamed encountered another man on the street and attempted to take an electric scooter, according to the Hennepin County Attorney's later review.

A driver who witnessed the confrontation tried to intervene.

The driver struck Mohamed with his vehicle, causing a serious leg injury.

For a moment, it may have appeared that the threat had been stopped.

But it had not.

The investigation later determined that Mohamed continued to possess a firearm.

Another driver, identified in the official report only by initials, encountered Mohamed lying injured in the street.

The driver got out of his vehicle to help.

That decision nearly cost him his life.

According to the county attorney's report, Mohamed fired at the man while lying on the ground. The injured man was struck, yet somehow managed to get back into his vehicle and drive his child to safety.

The scene was now changing by the second.

There were wounded people.

There had already been multiple shootings.

A gunman was still believed to be armed.

And emergency responders were on the way.

That was the situation Officer Jamal Mitchell was entering.

Officer Jamal Mitchell Responds

Officer Jamal Mitchell was the first Minneapolis police officer to arrive at the original 911 call.

He was 36 years old.

According to the Minneapolis Police Department and later reporting, Mitchell had joined the department in 2022.

He was a father, a fiancé, a son, a brother and a police officer.

On May 30, he was doing what police officers are trained to do when they arrive at a chaotic scene:

Find the victims.

Assess the danger.

Help the injured.

And try to understand what is happening.

His body camera captured his response.

The footage later released by Minneapolis police shows Mitchell approaching the scene and encountering two injured men in the street.

One of them was the alleged shooter.

The other was a wounded civilian.

Mitchell did not immediately know everything investigators would later uncover.

He was arriving in real time.

He was seeing an injured person.

And he was trying to help.

According to the body-camera footage described by CBS Minnesota, Mitchell approached and asked:

“Hey, who shot you? Are there victims inside?”

Those words would become painfully important.

Because the man Mitchell was speaking to was still armed.

And the weapon was still within reach.

Then the Gun Came Out

There is something unsettling about watching a body-camera recording when you already know how it ends.

Every movement suddenly seems important.

Every second feels slower.

A simple approach becomes a countdown.

Officer Mitchell moved toward Mohamed.

The suspect was injured.

But being injured did not mean he was no longer dangerous.

The later investigation determined that Mohamed shot Mitchell.

The official Hennepin County Attorney report states that Mitchell's body camera fully captured his response and his death.

According to that review, as Mitchell prepared to provide medical assistance, Mohamed shot him.

Mitchell's injuries were fatal.

The officer who had arrived to help someone who appeared to be wounded was now lying critically injured himself.

The entire encounter unfolded with frightening speed.

There was no prolonged negotiation.

No extended standoff.

No obvious warning period that would have allowed everyone to understand exactly what was happening.

There was simply a police officer approaching an injured man—and gunfire.

The Radio Call Changes Everything

Once Mitchell was shot, the nature of the emergency changed instantly.

This was no longer simply a report of a shooting.

An officer was down.

And the shooter was still active.

Other officers began racing toward the scene.

Firefighters also arrived.

But the danger had not ended.

According to the Hennepin County Attorney's review, firefighters attempted to help Mitchell even though the scene had not yet been declared secure.

Mohamed fired toward them as well.

One firefighter was struck in the boot.

The firefighters immediately took cover behind their fire truck.

Imagine the scene from their perspective.

They had arrived expecting to provide emergency medical assistance.

Instead, they found themselves in the middle of an active shooting situation.

An officer was down.

A suspect was armed.

Gunfire was continuing.

And anyone moving into the open could potentially become the next victim.

More Officers Race Toward the Gunfire

While civilians and firefighters searched for cover, additional Minneapolis officers were arriving.

Among them were Officers Nicholas Kapinos and Luke Kittock.

They were responding to a call that had become dramatically more serious.

The radio traffic had changed.

The information coming to responding officers now included an officer-down situation and reports that shots were still being fired.

Kittock arrived with his department-issued rifle ready.

Kapinos arrived shortly afterward.

Neither officer was walking into a normal crime scene.

They were walking into an active threat.

And somewhere ahead of them was the gunman.

The body-camera recordings later released by Minneapolis police provide a fragmented but powerful view of those moments.

Different cameras show different angles.

Different officers hear different things.

Some footage shows officers moving toward the danger.

Other footage shows them taking cover.

The videos do not tell the entire story from one perspective.

Instead, they create a frightening mosaic of a rapidly unfolding crisis.

The Fire Truck Becomes Cover

Officer Kapinos arrived at approximately 5:21:49 p.m., according to the later Hennepin County Attorney report.

He took shelter behind a parked fire truck with other responders.

Eight seconds after Kapinos exited his squad, a gunshot could be heard in the background.

More gunshots followed.

The sound alone told officers what they needed to know.

The threat was still active.

Kapinos remained behind cover.

Then, at approximately 5:22:48 p.m., he fired three rounds toward Mohamed.

Other officers were also engaging.

At the same time, Officer Kittock was moving forward.

His body camera captured a different part of the confrontation.

He arrived at approximately 5:21:23 p.m.

Seconds later, gunfire could be heard.

Kittock deployed his rifle.

At approximately 5:22:01, he began firing.

He continued moving forward while engaging Mohamed.

More shots followed.

The confrontation was happening in the open, while firefighters and other officers were still taking cover nearby.

The Moment the Gunman Goes Down

The body-camera footage released by Minneapolis police shows the chaotic aftermath of the gunfire.

Kittock continued to advance.

Kapinos also moved toward Mohamed.

The officers were trying to end the threat and secure the area.

At approximately 5:23:15 p.m., according to the later county attorney report, Kittock noted that the suspect was down.

Officers moved in.

They began securing Mohamed and preparing to provide medical care.

But even after the gunman was down, officers did not immediately know whether the danger was completely over.

The scene had already produced multiple victims.

An officer had been killed.

A firefighter had been struck.

Civilians had been shot.

And officers had been told they were dealing with an active shooter.

That uncertainty is visible in the body-camera footage.

The officers were moving quickly, but they were also watching.

Listening.

Checking.

Trying to determine whether there was another threat.

The gunman was eventually secured.

The shooting had stopped.

But the cost had already been enormous.

Four People Were Dead

By the time the violence was over, four people had died.

Two civilians were killed inside the apartment.

Officer Jamal Mitchell was killed after approaching Mohamed.

And Mohamed himself was fatally shot by responding officers.

Other people were injured as well.

The incident left Minneapolis confronting not one isolated shooting, but a chain of violence that had moved from an apartment to the street and then into a confrontation with police.

It was the kind of incident that can look very different depending on which moment you examine.

Inside the apartment, there was the beginning of the violence.

On the street, there was the struggle involving the scooter and the injured suspect.

Then came the shooting of a civilian.

Then Officer Mitchell's arrival.

Then his death.

Then the firefight involving responding officers.

Each event became part of the next.

And that is why the body-camera footage is so difficult to understand through a single frame.

A still image can show an officer aiming a weapon.

It can show a suspect.

It can show a hallway, a street, a doorway or a vehicle.

But it cannot show everything that happened before that moment.

And in this case, what happened before the final gunfire mattered enormously.

Who Was Mustafa Mohamed?

In the days after the shooting, more information emerged about Mohamed.

MPR News reported that Mohamed had previously served time in federal prison for illegal firearm possession.

Two years after his release, he was allegedly caught with a firearm again, and a warrant had been issued for his arrest.

The fact that he was prohibited from possessing a firearm became an important part of the later reporting surrounding the case.

But on May 30, the most immediate question for responding officers was not Mohamed's criminal history.

It was what was happening in front of them.

An officer was down.

People were wounded.

Gunfire was continuing.

And the person believed to be responsible was still armed.

The officers arriving at the scene had only the information available to them at that moment.

They did not have the benefit of the complete investigation.

They did not know every detail that would later be reconstructed from witness statements, forensic evidence, surveillance footage and body cameras.

They had a dangerous situation unfolding in front of them.

The 911 Calls Reveal the Panic

Weeks after the shooting, released 911 transcripts provided another window into the chaos.

The calls were not polished narratives.

They were fragments of fear.

People were hiding.

People were injured.

People were trying to explain what they had seen while the emergency was still unfolding.

One caller described hiding because they were afraid the shooter would come after them.

Another caller described seeing a man being shot and reported that the shooter was still active.

The transcripts helped investigators and the public understand how quickly the situation escalated.

They also helped explain why responding officers were arriving with limited information but an immediate need to act.

FOX 9 reported that the 911 records showed callers describing shootings inside the apartment, a confrontation involving a vehicle and the scooter, and continued gunfire outside.

Every call represented another piece of the puzzle.

And every piece made the scene appear more dangerous.

Why Was the Bodycam Footage Delayed?

There was another question that followed the shooting:

Why wasn't the body-camera footage immediately released?

Minnesota law places requirements on the release of police body-camera footage, but the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension was investigating the incident.

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara said the BCA had requested that the department temporarily withhold the footage because releasing it could interfere with the investigation.

That delay generated public interest because Officer Mitchell's death had already become a major story.

People wanted to see what happened.

They wanted to understand how an officer responding to a shooting could be killed so quickly.

They wanted to see the moment captured by the camera.

Eventually, the footage was released.

And when it was released, viewers could see something that written reports could never fully communicate:

the speed of the encounter.

The Video Changes the Way the Story Feels

Reading that an officer was shot is one thing.

Watching the body-camera footage is something else.

The camera moves with the officer.

You hear the radio.

You hear commands.

You hear other officers.

You hear gunfire.

And because the camera is attached to a person rather than positioned like a television camera, the footage feels incomplete.

That incompleteness is important.

A body camera does not automatically provide a perfect explanation of an incident.

It shows one perspective.

Another officer's camera may show something different.

A surveillance camera may reveal another angle.

Witness statements may provide additional context.

Forensic evidence can answer questions that the camera cannot.

That is why the later investigation did not rely on one video alone.

The BCA reviewed body-camera footage, squad-car video, surveillance footage, bystander video, forensic evidence and witness statements.

The county attorney's office ultimately said the different forms of evidence corroborated the released footage.

The Investigation Looked Beyond the Final Gunshots

The official review was not limited to the moment Officers Kapinos and Kittock fired.

Investigators examined the entire chain of events.

They examined what happened inside the apartment.

They examined the confrontation involving the scooter.

They examined the shooting of another civilian.

They examined Officer Mitchell's response.

They examined the shooting of Mitchell.

They examined the gunfire directed toward firefighters.

And they examined what the responding officers knew when they used deadly force.

That final point is particularly important.

The county attorney's office explained that the legal analysis focuses on the circumstances known to officers at the precise moment force was used.

Information discovered later can help investigators understand the overall incident, but it does not necessarily tell us what officers knew seconds earlier.

That distinction became central to the final review.

The Final Legal Review

Nearly a year after the shooting, the Hennepin County Attorney's Office issued its formal decision.

The office reviewed the investigation conducted by the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

Its conclusion was clear:

No criminal charges were warranted against the officers who used deadly force against Mohamed.

The county attorney's office concluded that Officers Nicholas Kapinos and Luke Kittock acted lawfully when they used deadly force to stop the threat.

The review stated that the evidence showed Mohamed posed a clear and immediate danger of death or great bodily harm to civilians, firefighters and police officers.

It specifically cited the fact that responding officers had been told about the shooting, received updates that an officer was down, saw Officer Mitchell's condition, heard continuing gunfire and observed firefighters and civilians taking cover.

The final report concluded that immediate action was required.

That conclusion did not erase what happened.

It did not bring Officer Mitchell back.

It did not undo the deaths of the two civilians inside the apartment.

It did not erase the injuries suffered by others.

And it did not change the fact that a dangerous sequence of events had unfolded in a Minneapolis neighborhood in a matter of minutes.

The Questions That Remain

Whenever body-camera footage is released after a deadly police shooting, viewers naturally ask questions.

Could the incident have ended differently?

Could Officer Mitchell have known the injured man was armed?

Could someone have warned him?

Could the suspect have surrendered?

Could another response have changed the outcome?

Those questions are understandable.

But answering them responsibly requires more than watching a dramatic clip.

The official investigation found that Mitchell approached Mohamed while attempting to render aid and that Mohamed shot him.

The same investigation found that the officers who later used deadly force were responding to an ongoing and immediate threat.

Those are documented findings.

Beyond those facts are questions about the decisions made in the seconds before each critical moment.

Those questions can be debated, but they should be distinguished from what investigators actually established.

A Body Camera Cannot Show What a Person Knows

One of the most important lessons from this case is also one of the easiest to miss.

A camera records what is in front of it.

It does not record everything inside a person's mind.

It does not automatically reveal what an officer heard through the radio.

It does not show information arriving through another officer.

It does not show every movement outside the camera's frame.

It does not show every piece of information that dispatchers provided.

And it certainly cannot predict what will happen one second later.

That is why the investigation considered multiple sources of evidence.

The body cameras were important.

But they were only part of the record.

The final Hennepin County review specifically cited body-camera recordings, squad video, surveillance footage, bystander video and witness statements.

Together, those sources created a much more complete picture.

The Human Cost Behind the Footage

It is easy to watch a police shooting video and focus only on the action.

The weapon.

The officer.

The suspect.

The gunfire.

The moment someone falls.

But there are people behind every one of those images.

Officer Jamal Mitchell was not simply a name in a police report.

He was a father and fiancé.

He had family members waiting for him.

He had friends and colleagues.

He had only been a Minneapolis police officer for a relatively short time.

The people killed inside the apartment were also more than names in an investigation.

Their families lost them.

The civilian who was shot after attempting to help Mohamed survived, but his experience became another part of the terrifying chain of events.

The firefighter struck during the shooting survived.

The officers who responded survived.

And an entire department had to deal with the loss of one of its own.

The body-camera footage captures the violence.

It cannot capture the full human cost.

The Moment That Started With an Attempt to Help

Perhaps the most haunting part of the story is where Officer Mitchell's final moments began.

He was responding to a shooting.

He saw a wounded person.

He approached.

He asked questions.

He was trying to determine what had happened.

The man in front of him was not lying there harmlessly waiting for an ambulance.

According to investigators, he was still capable of violence.

And in the seconds that followed, Officer Mitchell was killed.

That sequence is why the footage has continued to attract attention.

It forces viewers to confront how quickly the role of a police officer can change.

One second, an officer is a first responder.

The next, he is the victim.

Then other officers become the responders.

And suddenly the people who came to protect the public are fighting to survive themselves.

What Happened After the Shooting?

Once Mohamed was down, officers moved in.

Medical care was attempted.

The immediate threat was over.

But the investigation was only beginning.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension took over the investigative process.

Evidence was collected.

Witnesses were interviewed.

Video was reviewed.

Ballistic evidence was examined.

Different scenes had to be reconstructed.

And investigators had to determine exactly what happened before, during and after Officer Mitchell's death.

That process took months.

The eventual report from the Hennepin County Attorney's Office was released May 1, 2025.

It concluded that no criminal charges were appropriate against Officers Kapinos and Kittock.

More Than a Shooting

The May 30 Minneapolis incident is difficult to describe simply as a police shooting.

It began as a dispute inside an apartment.

It became a double homicide.

It moved onto the street.

It became an attempted robbery.

A vehicle struck an injured man.

Another civilian was shot.

A police officer arrived.

That officer was killed.

Firefighters came under fire.

Additional officers arrived.

A gunfight followed.

And four people ultimately died.

Each stage connected to the next.

That is what makes the body-camera footage so powerful.

The final seconds cannot be separated completely from the events that came before them.

Watching the Footage With the Full Story in Mind

If you watch the body-camera footage after reading only the headline, you may see a gunman and police officers.

But once you know the timeline, the images mean something different.

You know there had already been a shooting.

You know Officer Mitchell had been called to help.

You know he was killed while approaching Mohamed.

You know firefighters were also fired upon.

You know additional officers arrived while the suspect remained armed.

And you know that investigators later concluded that Mohamed represented an immediate threat when Kapinos and Kittock used deadly force.

The footage becomes more than a sequence of gunshots.

It becomes a record of how quickly an emergency can evolve.

The Final Question

There is one question that remains at the center of this story:

How does an officer arrive to help—and become the victim?

There is no single answer.

Officer Mitchell was responding to a dangerous call.

The suspect was already connected to multiple acts of violence.

The situation was changing before police arrived.

And once Mitchell approached Mohamed, the encounter lasted only moments before the officer was fatally shot.

Other officers then had to make their own decisions under immediate threat.

The official investigation ultimately determined that their use of deadly force was lawful.

But the footage still leaves viewers with an uncomfortable reality:

Sometimes there is no clean line between a rescue call and a deadly confrontation.

Sometimes the person who arrives first to save someone becomes the person everyone else must try to save.

And sometimes the entire course of an incident changes in less time than it takes to understand what is happening.

Final Thoughts

The Minneapolis shooting of May 30, 2024, was a tragedy that unfolded through a series of rapidly escalating events.

Two people were killed inside an apartment.

Another civilian was shot.

Officer Jamal Mitchell arrived to investigate and provide assistance.

He was killed.

Firefighters came under fire.

Additional Minneapolis officers responded.

The gunman was eventually shot and killed.

Later, investigators reconstructed the incident through body-camera recordings, surveillance footage, witness accounts, forensic evidence and other records.

The Hennepin County Attorney's Office ultimately concluded that the officers who used deadly force acted lawfully and that no criminal charges were warranted.

But even after the investigation ended, the body-camera footage remained.

A few minutes of video.

A few minutes that show fear, confusion, gunfire and the desperate response of people trying to stop a threat.

For viewers, the footage may raise difficult questions.

For Officer Mitchell's family and colleagues, however, it represents something much more personal.

It is part of the final record of a man who went to work that day expecting to help people.

He never came home.

And that is the part of this story that should not be forgotten.