Brooks: For lawmaker, a shooting by police hits home

This police shooting hit home for state Rep. Esther Agbaje.

The first-term state lawmaker was working from home Wednesday morning, focused on a Zoom committee meeting, when the first worried texts lit up her phone.

A Minneapolis police SWAT team had shot and killed someone in a downtown apartment building.

Her apartment building.

"I think the hardest part about today has just been the lack of information," said Agbaje, an attorney who campaigned on the fact that she, like so many of her constituents, rents downtown. "People are pretty shaken up. They're scared. … It's not great."

Police later said the suspect brandished a gun while officers were serving a search warrant related to a St. Paul homicide investigation. In the meantime, neighbors whispered to each other in the hallways and elevators while they waited for the official version of events, trying to piece together what had brought a SWAT team into their home.

"It can be unnerving for a lot of people, when you see a lot of police officers and they aren't telling you why they're there," she said.

Neighbors wondered how many bullets were fired. They wondered if any of those bullets had punched through the apartment walls into someone else's home. They wondered if anyone else had been hurt.

Downstairs, police tape blocked off the street and police officers crowded the lobby, thawing out from the subzero windchill outside.

A lobby full of police officers didn't make Agbaje, a Black woman living in Breonna Taylor's America, feel safer on Wednesday.

"It's really difficult to know that your home was violated in that way by people who are supposed to keep us safe," she said.

"We need to continue to have a serious conversation about what does policing look like in this city, so it's safe — not only for the police officers but also for the people who live here."

Fifty thousand people live in downtown Minneapolis. More people than have ever called downtown home, including the heyday 1950s, when Dayton's was Dayton's and the Foshay Tower dominated the skyline.

Downtown Minneapolis can be beautiful, boisterous, gross or grim. Some days, like Wednesday, downtown Minneapolis breaks your heart.

"Keep your loved ones safe, remember to say 'I love you,' " Agbaje said. "And take care of yourselves in these hard times."