Slain Minneapolis officer Jamal Mitchell’s last words: ‘Who shot you?’

Jamal Mitchell never hesitated.

When the Minneapolis police officer happened upon a man lying in the street last month, he immediately stopped his squad car and rushed to give aid. Mitchell pulled on rubber gloves and approached the individual he believed was wounded.

“Who shot you? Who shot you?” Mitchell asked, preparing to treat the bloodied man.

Without a word, the man rolled over and swung a pistol toward Mitchell with his finger on the trigger, as seen in newly released body-worn camera footage. He shot Mitchell at close range — and continued firing even after the officer fell to the ground — though the redacted footage cuts out before any rounds are actually discharged.

Less than five minutes later, responding officers killed the assailant, 35-year-old Mustafa Ahmed Mohamed, in an exchange of gunfire.

“Officer Mitchell never even had a chance to draw his handgun,” Police Chief Brian O’Hara said Friday in a news conference as he walked reporters through video.

The footage corroborated earlier accounts of the mass shooting in the Whittier neighborhood on May 30 that killed four people and wounded three others.

“All Jamal was trying to do was help somebody. ... He did absolutely nothing wrong,” O’Hara emphasized, becoming emotional. “He was very suddenly, and without provocation, ambushed and assassinated.”

The initial 911 call came in about 5:15 p.m. after a woman found her boyfriend unresponsive from a gunshot wound to the head in their south Minneapolis apartment. Another man lay dead in the kitchen.

It’s still not clear what led to the rampage, which spilled outside and down the block.

In the chaotic moments preceding the officers’ arrival, Mohamed apparently tried to steal a man’s electric scooter on Blaisdell Avenue. A passing Subaru driver reported intentionally ramming Mohamed, likely breaking his leg, before fleeing the scene. Witnesses saw Mohamed lying in the street and firing at motorists, including a man with his 2-year-old son in the backseat.

Mitchell, who was riding solo while working overtime that evening, quickly got out of his squad car when he saw Mohamed and another person in the street. “It looks like we have at least two victims outside at the location, bleeding,” he told dispatch before leaving his vehicle.

Seconds later, as he asked a woman on the sidewalk where the other victims were, Mohamed raised the gun, his finger on the trigger.

Police also released body camera video from two other officers. The recordings show the frantic search for the shooter and their fallen colleague.

Officer Luke Kittock left his squad car, gripping a long gun as sirens blared around him. “Where?! Where’s the guy shooting?” he demanded, running to a group of panicked bystanders in a nearby parking lot. They appeared to point toward a figure in the street, and Kittock, who took cover behind an SUV, unleashed a flurry of rounds in Mohamed’s direction.

At one point, blood can be seen dripping from his right hand, still clasping the rifle.

“He’s down,” Kittock yells before officers swarm Mohamed and disarm him. They tell someone to grab handcuffs as they wonder whether there was an additional gunman.

Kittock and an unidentified firefighter were wounded during the brief gun battle. Investigators recovered a jammed Glock 26 handgun equipped with an extended magazine at the scene.

Police also on Friday released footage of last week’s police encounter on the city’s southside that killed a 39-year-old Bloomington man.

Around 9:30 p.m. June 12, officers responded to the Longfellow neighborhood on a report of a man carrying a handgun and acting erratically. The suspect, Michael Warren Ristow, fled police, leading them on a foot chase down Hiawatha Avenue and through a commercial parking lot.

Officers identified themselves and repeatedly ordered Ristow to stop, body camera footage shows, before he eventually reached a dead end at a fence.

“Don’t! Drop the gun. Drop it!” officer Enoch Langford can be heard yelling.

“Get away from me,” Ristow replies.

“Drop the gun!” officer Chaz Wilson repeats.

“Get away,” Ristow says again. Just as he turned toward officers with a firearm in his right hand, three officers opened fire.

O’Hara told the media that Ristow’s gun appeared to have jammed. He called it a “justifiable and lawful” use of force.

“I believe the actions displayed by our officers in these instances were reasonable and necessary considering the threats that were being posed,” O’Hara reiterated Friday, flanked by his command staff. “Our police officers performed courageously to protect our community.”

Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) investigators recovered Ristow’s handgun and the bloodied backpack he is seen wearing in the video. Inside the backpack were two magazines filled with 9-millimeter ammunition and a spent casing, according to a search warrant affidavit filed in court Thursday.

Nearly 20 cartridge casings, fired from police-issued handguns, littered the parking lot.

Both shootings remain under investigation by the BCA.

Minnesota law requires that police agencies release body camera footage within 14 days of a deadly encounter, unless doing so would interfere with an investigation.

O’Hara agreed to temporarily withhold the footage of the Mitchell shooting at the BCA’s request because, the agency said, releasing it might hinder its investigation. On Thursday, the law enforcement agencies agreed on the video’s release.

“My approach has been, and will always be, to make these videos available as soon as we possibly can, as fast as is appropriate,” O’Hara said. “We have no further investigative reason for delay in the June 12 [Ristow] case.”

Star Tribune staff writer Paul Walsh contributed to this report.