In Minneapolis, officers shoot and kill suspect, sparking small protest

Law-enforcement officers in Minneapolis shot and killed a suspect wanted for a gun possession charge on Thursday, officials said, sparking a small protest in a city still rattled by the murder of George Floyd in police custody a year ago.

Members of a US Marshals task force were attempting to arrest a felon wanted on a state arrest warrant, according to a Marshals service statement issued by a Hennepin County Sheriff's Department spokesperson.

The agencies making up the task force were not revealed but did not include Minneapolis police, the department whose officers were involved in Floyd's death, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.

“During the incident, the subject, who was in a parked car, failed to comply and produced a handgun resulting in task force members firing upon the subject,” the statement said.

Officers attempted to revive the man but he was declared dead by paramedics on the scene. A woman who was in the car with the suspect sustained minor injuries from shattered glass, the statement said.

Witnesses at the scene said they heard about 10 gunshots, KSTP television reported.

The race of neither the suspect nor the officers was mentioned in the statement or in local media accounts.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension will lead the investigation into the shooting, the statement said.

Word of the incident spread quickly, drawing a crowd of protesters who stood along police tape nearby. Tensions have run high in Minneapolis since May 2020 when Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, was killed by a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, sparking global protests about racial inequality and police brutality. A jury convicted Chauvin of murder in April, and a trial of the other officers on lesser charges is pending.

“We understand the anger and ire when we see these police shootings,” Pharoah Merritt, one of the protesters, told the Star Tribune. “We don't know anything.”