Minneapolis shooting victim recounts loss, trauma despite her efforts to avoid gun violence

Weeks before a shooter killed her girlfriend and nearly claimed her own life in her south Minneapolis apartment, Heaven Lacy tried moving away from the gun violence.

"Hey Mike there's been a lot of shootings around the house and I was wondering if you had any other vacancies at any other apartments available?" Lacy, 24, texted her landlord July 6.

On July 23, 20-year-old Calon Hatchett knocked on Lacy's door inside the Bossen Terrace Apartments at 3114 58th St. E., where she was curled up watching a movie with her girlfriend, Tonia Powell.

Powell, 30, stepped out into the hallway to smoke weed with Hatchett — known to them both for selling drugs around the apartment — despite Lacy's pleas for her to stay inside. Moments later, she heard arguing and gunshots. Hatchett had allegedly shot Powell multiple times, then barged into the unit and fired three times at Lacy. One bullet struck her chest, pierced her lung and exited through her back. Lacy crawled to the door, locked it and called 911. She collapsed, unable to open it when officers arrived.

"C-Man shot me," she told them.

Powell, who lay unconscious in the apartment building's entrance, was later pronounced dead at a hospital.

Hatchett is now jailed, charged with murder and attempted murder.

Hospitalized at HCMC, Lacy looked through photos and videos of Powell, whose funeral will be Saturday at Brooks Funeral Home in St. Paul. Meanwhile, Hatchett is due for a court appearance Thursday and remained in custody in lieu of $2 million bail.

Lacy, another victim of the gun violence gripping the city, now grieves both for her girlfriend and their lost future together as she faces a long recovery.

"I just swore she was going to make it because she's so strong, so resilient. I was sure when I first woke up that she was in the room next to me somewhere," Lacy said of Powell in an interview from her hospital bed.

Crime data shows Minneapolis police responded to dozens of gunfire reports in the neighborhood the past two years, and made around 200 other responses to the immediate Bossen Terrace area last year, according to a Star Tribune analysis of police data.

Powell's killing was the city's 35th homicide of 2023, according to a Star Tribune database. As of last week, Minneapolis had about 20 fewer homicides than last year. Reports of shooting victims are down about 40% and reported gunfire is down 30%.

Hatchett didn't live at Bossen Terrace. But he had unfettered access because the front entrance deadbolt had been broken for months. Since the shooting it has been fixed, but Lacy said it's too late. Now her boarded-up unit reads "RIP Tonia" in red spray paint.

Reached by phone, landlord Mike Hoag hung up. He didn't return calls or texts.

When Lacy awoke at HCMC, a breathing tube forced her to communicate with her mom and investigators by writing on paper for the first few days. She recalled waking up the first time and asking her mom if Powell, her girlfriend of about three years, was OK.

"I wrote it down, is TP alive or did she make it? And then she looked at me and you could tell she didn't want to give me the answer, you know?" Lacy said. "And then she was like, no she didn't. ... On the paper I asked again, I'm like, really? And she was, like no. ... I just cried."

Through her notes, she told police that she knew Hatchett because he used to allegedly sell drugs in the apartment building. When shown a photograph of him, she "gave an emotional response that caused the alarms on her medical monitoring equipment to go off and nurses to rush in the room," charges said.

When police arrested Hatchett — who had pending carjacking and robbery cases — in downtown Minneapolis, a Glock 10-millimeter handgun was inside his backpack. It matched the casings found at the shooting.

Lacy, the mother of two toddler boys, said Powell had a special bond with her youngest son, Raylen. Powell had known him since he was 6 months old and he turns 3 in September. She said Powell called "Ray Ray" her son, too.

"I just watched her love grow for him so strong. She was the one that helped me teach him how to walk," Lacy said. "She was a protector even just being in my family in a short time."

Powell's mother, Joi Young, of St. Paul said that she has been trying to catch her breath ever since the shooting, hyperventilating into brown paper bags over losing her first-born daughter to senseless violence.

"She's such a big piece of our family puzzle," Young said.

Loved ones are grieving from Chicago— where Powell grew up before moving to Minneapolis when she was 7 — to Detroit, New York, Florida and Louisiana. Young said until her death Powell was always looking out for her cousins.

And her daughter was always a tomboy, she said. Powell wore a dress and heels to homecoming her freshman year at Washburn High School. She was visibly awkward, Young said, and it wasn't long before Powell was on the dance floor in a pair of Nike Air Force 1s.

Powell came out to her mom as gay when she was 16.

"Her saying that she was gay — Stevie Wonder could've seen that," Young said with a laugh.

Young said her daughter was supposed to come visit that Sunday. Instead she was calling the medical examiner to confirm the news she refused to believe. She's busy trying to plan and pay for the funeral and has set up an account on an online fundraising site to help cover costs.

Despite the loss and tragedy, Lacy is grateful her sons weren't home that night when Hatchett knocked on the door.

As she anticipates being discharged from the hospital after nearly a week's stay, Lacy said her first order of business will be breaking her lease. With the help of the online fundraising site, she hopes to find a safer place for them to live.

Star Tribune staff writer Jeff Hargarten contributed to this story.