MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Six individuals who were acquainted with one another were in a vehicle when one of them, a man allegedly affiliated with a gang, shot each person in the head before escaping, as per newly disclosed criminal charges related to this week’s mass shooting in Minneapolis.
Three of the victims were found dead at the scene early Tuesday. Another died from his injuries on Thursday. One victim has been hospitalized after being shot in the face but managed to identify the shooter to authorities, according to the charges.
Investigators suspect that a fifth individual was killed hours later as a retaliatory act. A suspect involved in the initial shooting was apprehended on Thursday and has been charged with murder.
Police say the victims were all Native Americans and the shooting was gang-related. The rash of violence has shaken one of the country’s largest urban Indigenous communities.
What do we know about the victims?
The first shooting happened on Tuesday just before midnight in a vehicle parked in the diverse residential and commercial neighborhood of Phillips in south Minneapolis. The county medical examiner’s office on Friday said the three who died at the scene were Evan Ramon Denny, 27 of St. Paul; Joseph Douglas Goodwin, 17, of Minneapolis; and Merelle Joan White, 20, of Red Lake. Two had been shot multiple times.
A 20-year-old woman was shot in the face and hospitalized in critical condition, the complaint said. She said the shooter was sitting in the back seat when he opened fire on her and everyone else in the vehicle before fleeing on foot.
A 28-year-old man was hospitalized in grave condition but died shortly after the suspect was arrested on Thursday, police said. That victim’s name was still being withheld Friday.
A second shooting the next day
About 13 hours later and a few blocks away, a man was killed near an apartment building that happens to house the Minneapolis office of the Red Lake Nation, one of the state’s largest tribes. The medical examiner identified him Friday as Tiago Antonio Gilbert, 34, of Minneapolis. He died of multiple gunshot wounds.
The Minneapolis police chief said Thursday it was “entirely probable” this second shooting was revenge for the first. But a police spokesman, Sgt. Garrett Parten, said investigators were still working to determine if there was a link.
Police have released few other details about that homicide.
How have Minnesota’s Native American communities reacted?
A makeshift memorial had sprung up by Friday at the site of the first shooting. Red, silver and black balloons were tied to a tree where a plush eagle toy was also attached. At the base were candles, fresh flowers and a bottle of tequila.
The state’s 11 sovereign tribal nations issued a joint statement Thursday, mourning the deaths and urging anyone with information to contact city law enforcement or their own tribal police.
“As native peoples, we have always known grief,” the statement said. “But we have also always experienced the strength that comes afterward. We are here because our ancestors cared for one another. That is how you are even here — because someone before you chose love, protection, and community over despair.”
Police say the shootings were gang-related
The murder charges against James Duane Ortley, 34, of Minneapolis, allege he and members of his family are associated with a gang known as the Native Mob. It operates in the city’s south and other parts of Minnesota, the charges say.
The gang was the subject of a multiyear federal investigation over a decade ago that resulted in the convictions of 28 people. Its alleged leader at the time was sentenced in 2014 to 43 years in prison.
The suspect is now charged with murder
The U.S. Marshals Service said its local fugitive task force and an FBI SWAT team arrested Ortley on Thursday afternoon. He was charged a day earlier with second-degree murder and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Ortley has a felony assault conviction on his record from 2021, which the complaint said prohibits him from possessing guns or ammunition. Court records show he completed his probation in 2023. When police interviewed him in 2023 in a separate homicide investigation, the complaint said, he acknowledged that his street name was “Baby James.”
Ortley remained jailed Friday, and court records didn’t list an attorney who could comment on his behalf. His first court appearance is scheduled for Monday. The chief public defender for Hennepin County, Michael Berger, said his office probably won’t learn if it’s representing Ortley until Monday. Messages were left with several potential relatives of Ortley’s.
What was the suspect’s relationship to the victims?
The victim who survived told police the shooter went by the street names “Baby J,” “Little J” and “Little James,” and was a friend of one of the victims, according to the complaint filed in Hennepin County District Court.
Relatives of one victim told police that the victims were all together at a family friend’s residence in Minneapolis but left around 9:30 p.m. with plans to pick up “Baby J,” who was known to be a “close family friend” of the victims. The family member identified “Baby J” as the defendant.
Other law enforcement sources told investigators that Ortley was “an associate” of more than one victim, the complaint said.
A surveillance video was consistent with the survivor’s account, the complaint said. It shows one person matching Ortley’s description exiting the vehicle and fleeing before police arrived.
The motive is still unknown
The complaint gave no details on what might have prompted the shootings.
“This is a bittersweet day,” Police Chief Brian O’Hara said in a statement Friday. “While this arrest represents meaningful progress toward justice, that progress is overshadowed by the heartbreaking loss of another life. Our thoughts remain with the victims’ families, their loved ones, and a community that continues to grieve.”
___
Associated Press reporters Mark Vancleave in Minneapolis and John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, contributed.
