Things to know about the fatal shooting of a Minneapolis officer that police describe as an ‘ambush’
MINNEAPOLIS– Minnesota police on Saturday identified the man they say was fatally shot Minneapolis officer in what calls the police an ambush.
Minnesota Public Safety Department spokesman Bonney Bowman named 35-year-old Mustafa Mohamed as the suspected shooter. He was later shot and killed by another responding officer.
Minneapolis Officer Jamal Mitchell was responding to a call about a double shooting Thursday when he stopped to help Mohamed, who he thought was injured, police said.
Mohamed then shot Mitchell multiple times, killing him, police said. A local coroner identified 32-year-old Osman Said Jimale as the third man killed in the shooting. Four others were injured.
Other than the identities of the men killed, few details have emerged since the shooting. Many questions remain, but here are some things you need to know.
Officers responded to a call of a double shooting at an apartment complex in the Whittier neighborhood of south Minneapolis.
When Mitchell was about two blocks from the complex, he saw individuals who were injured. He got out of his car to render aid to Mohamed, who then shot the officer, according to police.
“I saw the video and he was ambushed,” Chief Inspector Drew Evans of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said at a news conference Thursday. “I don’t use the term for nothing.”
Another officer arrived and exchanged gunfire with Mohamed, who died despite lifesaving efforts on the part of the officers, said Assistant Minneapolis Police Chief Katie Blackwell.
That officer had non-life-threatening injuries. Another person, believed to be an innocent bystander, was shot and taken to a hospital in critical condition, Evans said.
When other officers went to the apartment, they found two people inside who had been shot. One was dead and the other was hospitalized in critical condition, Evans said.
Police have so far provided little information about the suspected shooter, Mohamed, and the other deceased man, Jimale.
Mitchell was a father engaged to be married. He was only with the department for about 18 months.
Minneapolis police posted on Facebook last year that Mitchell and another officer had rescued an elderly couple from a house fire.
On Feb. 7, 2023, Mitchell’s third day on the job, he and Officer Zachery Randall responded to a call and found a house on fire, the post said. The officers rushed in and got the couple out before the house was completely engulfed in flames and destroyed.
“I told him, ‘You’re one of the good ones, Jamal,’” close friend Allison Seed told the newspaper Minnesota Star Grandstand. “They really needed him.”
What exactly led to the shooting and the shooter’s motivations are still unknown.
Evans said he believed the shooting was isolated from the two locations and that the people in the apartment “somewhat knew each other.”
The connection between the two shooting scenes was not immediately clear. According to the police, the population is not in danger.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has said authorities are still investigating and asked people to “be patient with us as we don’t know all the facts yet. We want to make sure the investigation is completed and that we do it the right way.”