Minneapolis gunman killed after shooting that left two neighbors dead and five others injured

A shooting at a Minneapolis apartment building on September 2, 2026, left two residents dead, five other people injured and the gunman killed by police, according to an Associated Press report that traced the attack back through a history of threats, weapon displays and domestic violence allegations.

The gunman was identified as Carlton Johnson. AP said he had threatened neighbors, repeatedly shown off a pistol and warned that he planned to shoot people. Building owners were trying to evict him, and at least one person had already asked for a restraining order. Police had investigated him in June for displaying a weapon, but prosecutors decided not to file charges.

The shooting began about 4:30 p.m. outside the entrance to Shoreline Plaza apartments during an arranged custody handoff. Drew Evans, superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said Johnson shot and wounded a woman believed to be the mother of his child. The child was not hurt.

Johnson then shot two building employees and rode an elevator to the ninth floor, where he killed two residents before police killed him. Officers reached the building only 2 minutes and 26 seconds after the first 911 call, the report said. Two Minneapolis police officers were also hit by gunfire.

The AP account places domestic violence at the center of the case. Evans told reporters that the episode was another example of a terrible situation with domestic violence as the core issue. Court documents also show that Johnson had faced prior allegations tied to a 2023 restraining order. In that case, a woman who had a child with him accused him of threatening to kill her in text messages after she had told police he sexually assaulted her two years earlier. The restraining order was granted.

The building’s residents had seen warning signs for months. One neighbor told AP that Johnson had shown him the pistol days earlier and said he planned to shoot his ex-girlfriend and two building managers because of the eviction threat. The neighbor said he reported the threat to building managers, though the report says it is unclear what happened after that.

Investigators and city officials are still working through how much warning they had and what steps could have been taken sooner. Interim Police Chief Bill Peterson defended the response, saying officers had only recently learned of many of the incidents and that police must make decisions about how to divide limited resources among large numbers of cases.

The event adds another grim example to the national debate over warning signs, gun access and the intersection of domestic conflict with public violence. On the facts available in the AP report, the attack was not a sudden and isolated burst of violence but the end point of a long chain of documented and undocumented threats that built up in one apartment building.

For Minneapolis, the immediate questions are about the victims, the investigation and what systems failed. For police and prosecutors, the case will likely become a test of how much can be acted on when someone has already made alarming threats but has not yet crossed a prosecutable line.