Police have arrested a man at a Minneapolis encampment who they say fired a gun from a moving car and fatally shot a motorcyclist riding on a city street one summer’s afternoon.
Suspect in shooting of motorcyclist on Minneapolis street is arrested in homeless camp
Police say a gunman fired from a moving car one afternoon in July. The victim died three months later of his injuries.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
November 15, 2024 at 7:27PM
Johnny Birzavi Sanchez Sanchez, 25, of Minneapolis, was struck in the neck by gunfire from a car on July 25 near 31st Street E. and Clinton Avenue in the Central neighborhood and died on Oct. 16 at North Memorial Health Hospital in Robbinsdale.
On Tuesday morning, officers arrested a 22-year-old Minneapolis man at an encampment in the 2800 block of Stevens Avenue S., according to police records.
Police have forwarded the case to the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office for consideration of murder charges, an office spokesman said. The Star Tribune generally does not identify suspects before they are charged.
In the meantime, the suspect remained jailed without bail Friday ahead of a court appearance in Hennepin County on Monday in connection with an unrelated robbery charge.
The state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) joined the investigation on July 30 and used surveillance video to connect the car with the suspect, according to a search warrant affidavit filed in court this week that asked for law enforcement to collect a DNA sample from the suspect.
The filing said Sanchez Sanchez was riding west on 31st Street about 2:30 p.m. when he “was shot by an unknown person that was a passenger in a red Ford compact car.” The shot sent the motorcycle crashing.
Sanchez Sanchez, who was left quadriplegic from being shot, identified the shooter to the BCA in a photo lineup, the filing read.
Police went to the encampment shortly after 7 a.m. Tuesday, found the suspected shooter and turned him over to the BCA.
Mayor Jacob Frey and other city leaders have been pointing to the many homeless encampments in the city as hotbeds for violent crime in and around the makeshift sites.
There have been 66 homicides in Minneapolis so far this year, according to a Minnesota Star Tribune database. That compares with 57 at this time last year and 48 in 2019, the previous full year before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Erin Fitzgerald left her job at JLL to found her own commercial real estate firm in hopes of revitalizing downtown Minneapolis.
