Two charged in weekend shooting of Minneapolis police officer

The Hennepin County Attorney's Office on Tuesday charged a man with attempted murder and a woman as an accomplice in the weekend shooting of an on-duty Minneapolis police officer.

Late Friday evening, officer Jacob Spies was wounded by automatic gunfire while pursuing a robbery suspect in an unmarked car on the city's North Side. Spies, a seven-year department veteran, was struck in the back of the shoulder and taken to North Memorial Health in Robbinsdale, where he was treated and discharged overnight.

Four people, including a teenage boy, were arrested in the aftermath. County Attorney Mary Moriarty so far has announced charges against two adults. Frederick Leon Davis, 19, of Minneapolis faces one count of attempted second-degree murder, and Nevaeh Lee Page, 20, of Brooklyn Park faces one count of aiding an offender. Police identified the other adult male, but the Star Tribune doesn't typically name suspects until they have been formally charged.

Davis and Page make their first court appearances Wednesday afternoon.

"We experienced a disturbing level of gun violence over the weekend. The danger that comes with all gun violence is intensified when firearms are modified to make them fully automatic, as occurred in this attack," Moriarty said in a statement. "Our office will continue to prioritize prosecution of this type of violence, to bring justice for victims and their families, and to get these dangerous weapons off the street."

Moriarty added that she is grateful Spies is on the road to recovery. (Moriarty and top police officials never named the wounded officer, but sources identified him to the Star Tribune as Jacob Spies.)

MPD Chief Brian O'Hara, who characterized the shooting as an "ambush," repeatedly raised doubts on Saturday about whether the gunmen knew they were targeting a police officer.

In addition to driving an unmarked sedan with tinted windows, Spies was wearing a blue Minneapolis police T-shirt rather than full uniform — and may not have been readily identifiable to passing motorists.

"I cannot say whether the suspects in the vehicle believed he was the police or believed he was someone else," O'Hara said at a weekend news conference. "But it's clear from what happened that they were trying to kill whoever was in that car."

Charges do not list a motive for the shooting, or indicate whether the suspects knew that the vehicle tailing them was law enforcement.

According to the criminal complaint:

Just before 8 p.m., officers observed a white Chevrolet Equinox in the area of a robbery that had just occurred in north Minneapolis. The SUV, which had a COPS alert for fleeing from Brooklyn Park police the previous day, initially pulled over but then sped away.

Around an hour later, Spies, driving alone in an unmarked vehicle, observed that same Chevy in the area of Dowling and Morgan avenues N. He pursued the vehicle for about a mile to the 4300 block of Colfax Avenue N. As Spies crested a hill, he noticed the Chevy parked near the eastern curb with its lights off. Without warning, he was hit by a volley of automatic gunfire — from seemingly two different directions — and felt his arm go numb.

Spies accelerated west on Webber Parkway to Fremont Avenue N., where a backup officer pulled him from the vehicle and raced him to the hospital.

Shortly after the shots were fired, backup officers spotted the same Chevy Equinox in the area of 42nd and Lyndale avenues N., O'Hara said. Several squad cars began pursuing the vehicle and attempted a traffic stop, but the driver refused to pull over. That high-speed pursuit continued for 26 blocks to 21st and Upton avenues N., where the suspect vehicle crashed into a parked car.

Two suspects, later identified as Davis and Page, fled the SUV on foot. A teenage boy "stumbled out of the car with an apparent head injury," charges say, while another man remained in the vehicle until he was arrested.

Officers deployed a police dog to track Davis and Page to a nearby yard. Davis was later treated at the hospital for a dog bite.

Investigators found two firearms in the car: a fully automatic Glock 19, equipped with a switch, on the front floorboard where Davis was sitting, as well as a Polymer 80 9-millimeter "ghost gun" without serial numbers in the back where the teenage boy was sitting, charges say.

A preliminary review of ballistics evidence suggests the Glock automatic firearm had fired 12 shots and the Polymer 80 had firedthree shots. One occupant of the vehicle named Davis as the shooter.

A witness in the area also told investigators that he saw a man, wearing light clothing, standing in the street shooting at the unmarked police vehicle. Davis was the only one in the car matching that physical description.

In a police interview, Davis claimed he had "been asleep in the backseat, never heard shots fired, and woke up to a crash and police chasing him on foot."

None of the adult suspects appear to have a criminal record in Minnesota.