911 transcript paints harrowing scene hours before Minneapolis police fatally shot man

The caller said two bullets had just pierced through her kitchen.

She didn't know if she'd been hit. She thought about firing back. She hugged her son and told him to stay on the ground.

"I don't know if he's gonna die, oh, my God," Arabella Foss-Yarbrough told the 911 operator.

Minneapolis officials released the transcript Monday of the 911 call that brought officers to a South Side apartment building last week and ended with police snipers shooting and killing 20-year-old Andrew Tekle Sundberg, a Black man.

The city has yet to release body camera footage of the incident showing what precipitated the lethal force after a six-hour standoff with negotiators. Sundberg's family says their son appeared to be in the throes of a mental health crisis, and his killing drew dozens of protesters over the weekend asking why police weren't able to take him alive.

Foss-Yarbrough on Saturday confronted demonstrators outside the apartment in the 900 block of 21st Avenue S. In a moment that's since gone viral on social media, she said Sundberg could have killed her 2- and 4-year-old boys if not for police.

"This is not a George Floyd situation," she said. "George Floyd was unarmed."

Sundberg "tried to kill me in front of my kids!" she told them.

The 911 transcript offers a real-time window into the frantic moments before officers arrived the night of the shooting, during which Foss-Yarbrough, who lives in the apartment next to Sundberg's, is heard trying to console her children, trapped inside her apartment and waiting to be saved.

She told the operator she thought a bullet may have grazed her, or maybe it was a shard of glass from the vase the bullet smashed. She had a permit to carry a firearm, she said. "I don't know if I should shoot back."

"I would not recommend that," cautioned the operator, who said police would be there soon.

Foss-Yarbrough said she knew the person who lived in the apartment next door but not by name. He'd given her unwanted attention, she said, and she'd ignored him. She didn't know if that's why he shot at her wall, she said.

"I don't know if he shot his self; I don't know what's going on — but I literally heard two bullets, like two shots go off."

She told the operator the buzzer was broken, so she couldn't let police in the building from her apartment.

At one point, the transcript described several loud noises. "He's shooting again. He's shooting again," Foss-Yarbrough said.

"Yeah, more shots fired, don't open the door," the operator said.

Foss-Yarbrough is later heard screaming amid the yelling of other unknown voices.

"I'm outside," she said.

"Get behind this car," a male voice said.

The transcript ends with a cryptic description of "inaudible screaming."

Police said they went to the apartment late Wednesday in response to Foss-Yarbrough's 911 call and encountered more gunfire and debris exploding from walls as they entered the building. They rescued Foss-Yarbrough and her children and moved others outside.

Marcus McGhee lived on the second floor beneath Foss-Yarbrough and recalled being petrified hearing gunshots. He looked out his window and saw police escorting Foss-Yarbrough outside.

"When they rescued her, if you would have seen her face — I've never seen anybody that scared in my life," McGhee said. "You could tell she thought she escaped death." He didn't know if he should jump out out his window or stay in place; soon an officer knocked on his door and directed him to leave the building along with other residents.

The standoff lasted until about 4:30 a.m., when two police snipers fired at Sundberg from the roof of an apartment building across the street, according to search warrant affidavits.

The city also released the public personnel files on Monday of the officers who shot Sundberg: Aaron Pearson and Zachary Seraphine.

Seraphine, a former firefighter and EMT for Centennial Fire District in Lino Lakes, has served on the Minneapolis SWAT team on and off since 2018. His personnel file includes awards noting his compassion and work ethic..

Pearson joined MPD in 2014, following a stint in the U.S. Army Reserves, in which the staff sergeant was awarded two Purple Hearts while deployed in Afghanistan as a combat engineer.

Both officers have been the subject of multiple internal affairs complaints, which were either dismissed without discipline or remain open investigations.

Staff reporters Liz Sawyer and Maya Rao contributed to this report.