A white Minneapolis man was charged with attempted murder Thursday after he allegedly shot his black neighbor in the neck for touching a tree following an ongoing dispute, but police’s inability to arrest the suspect has angered city council members .
The Hennepin County Prosecutor’s Office has filed charges against John Herbert Sawchak in connection with Wednesday’s shooting of Davis Moturi.
The office said it received the case Thursday and immediately charged Sawchak with attempted murder, first-degree assault and harassment and stalking aggravated by racial bias, NBC affiliate KARE of Minneapolis reported.
At the time of the shooting, Sawchak had three active warrants out for his arrest, including one for threats of violence against Moturi, court documents show.
As of Saturday afternoon, Sawchak had not yet been arrested by Minneapolis police. A spokesperson said they “have every intention to arrest him.”
On Wednesday, Moturi was pruning a tree on his property when he was shot. Court documents show Sawchak shot his neighbor in the neck with a firearm from an open upstairs window.
Moturi broke his spine, has two broken ribs and a concussion, his wife Caroline said in a telephone interview on Saturday.
Sawchak, 54, could not be reached at a phone number listed for him.
Police Chief Brian O’Hara said at a news conference Friday that officers responded to the hospital on reports of a gunshot victim. Moturi told them that his neighbor had threatened to shoot him “if he touched a specific tree.” While Moturi was cutting down the tree, he was shot.
The chief said Sawchak was not arrested because he is “mentally ill” and owns firearms. In the past, Sawchak has had “violent confrontations” and refused to cooperate on the dozens of times officers have gone to his home, O’Hara said.
Court documents say Sawchak suffers from mental illness and a “paranoid personality disorder.”
“We have been working to arrest the suspect in this case since April this year, when the harassment charge was first dismissed by the Public Prosecution Service and then filed with the Public Prosecution Service,” the police chief told reporters. “No Minneapolis police officer has had personal contact with that suspect since the victim in this case called us.”
O’Hara said the execution of an order would be considered high risk.
“Based on our assessment, the likelihood of an armed, violent confrontation that may require us to use lethal force against the suspect in this case is high,” he said. “We wanted to arrest the suspect in a place where he would be least likely to have access to firearms. That’s outside the house.”
The chief said Sawchak is a “recluse” who doesn’t leave his home often. A police spokesperson could not provide a timeline on when a possible arrest could take place.
The delay in taking Sawchak into custody has angered some members of the Minneapolis City Council. Andrea Jenkins, Elliott Payne, Aisha Chughtai, Jason Chavez and Robin Wonsley sent a letter to O’Hara and Mayor Jacob Frey, accusing police of “failing to protect a Minneapolis resident from a clear, persistent and well-reported threat of his neighbor. ” according to the Minnesota Star Tribune.
Jenkins told reporters after the police chief’s news conference that violent criminals need to be taken off the streets.
“I’m not a police officer, I don’t know how that’s supposed to be done, but I know it’s supposed to be done,” Jenkins said.
O’Hara said anyone suggesting police don’t want to arrest Sawchak is “simply wrong.” Frey’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“To be honest, though, the officers are scared. They are afraid of being prosecuted if they find themselves in a situation where they make a mistake in their attempt to do their job and protect the public,” the police chief said at the press conference.
Last year, the Minneapolis Police Department was at the center of a federal investigation launched following the 2020 killing of George Floyd. The Justice Department found that the department and the city had a pattern of excessive force and racial discrimination that violated with both the U.S. Constitution and federal law.
“If we went in with a SWAT team and got into a deadly situation, the headlines would be, ‘MPD shoots a mentally ill person,’” the chief said.
Moturi, 34, says the inability of police to help him is the reason he is now in hospital.
“I specifically said in emails that something really, really bad has to happen for something to happen,” he said in a telephone interview from the hospital. “And something really bad happened and he’s still free.”
Moturi and his wife said their problems with Sawchak started after they moved into their home in September 2023. Initially they said it stemmed from Moturi wanting to cut down a tree on his property.
“I went to approach him about the tree, like any good neighbor should do… and he just wasn’t having it. He started getting very aggressive and swearing at me,” Moturi said. “I thought he was just having a bad day so I left and I came back and he kept making threats and saying all kinds of racially charged things, calling me ghetto.”
The problems with Sawchak soon escalated according to Moturi, who said Sawchak started doing things like spraying water on the side of his house and using a blow horn to keep them awake.
It got so bad that Moturi installed outdoor cameras to record his neighbor’s behavior. According to Moturi, Sawchak tried to attack him while he was putting up the cameras.
Moturi said he had to spray Sawchak to get him to back up.
In another incident in April, Moturi said Sawchak attacked him with a shovel while he was cleaning his yard.
Moturi said he and his wife called and emailed police dozens of times, but Sawchak was never arrested.
Court documents show Sawchak has a long history of alleged threats and violent acts. In January 2016, he allegedly verbally assaulted a neighbor while holding a knife and threatened to kill a neighbor, the documents said.
In June of that year, he allegedly used a knife to slash the tires of an off-duty police officer’s vehicle. Other cases mentioned in the document allege he tried to hit a neighbor with a motorized bicycle, threatened to ambush and shoot his sister, hit a neighbor with a wooden stick causing injuries, threatened to kill a neighbor to stop the hospital and threw a shovel. at a neighbor’s.
He was arrested several times over the years on suspicion of second-degree assault and assault/harassment, court documents state.
This month, Sawchak was accused of brandishing a knife and threatening to kill his neighbor, pointing a gun at his neighbor while standing outside the neighbor’s window and shooting the neighbor in the neck, records show.
The court also accuses Sawchak of violating multiple restraining orders. Thirteen restraining orders have been filed against him since 2007, with the most recent filed by Moturi, who said Sawchak “threatened to hospitalize him while holding a gun.”
Another restraining order filed by another person expired earlier this month, court records show.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
