There will be no murder charges filed in last week’s fatal shooting at a large Minneapolis homeless encampment.
Tyrone Joseph Mohr, 45, was killed Dec. 12 after gunfire broke out just after 5 p.m. inside the encampment on the 2300 block of 13th Avenue South in Jamal Osman’s Ward 6 Ventura Village neighborhood.
The decedent from the encampment shooting homicide earlier this week has been identified as Tyrone Joseph Mohr, 45.
. pic.twitter.com/LE14ifhrhu— CrimeWatchMpls (@CrimeWatchMpls) December 16, 2023
The encampment has been the site of at least two previous shootings, one of them less than two weeks prior where another person was seriously injured after being shot three times, as well as a string of other incidents including shots fired, assaults, overdoses, stolen vehicles, and mountains of trash.
According to dispatch audio last Tuesday, police arrived at the encampment on the shooting report and immediately called for more squads for crowd control. Police said at the time that parties were carrying the victim out of the encampment. Medical responders attended to the victim, and police proceeded to clear the encampment of residents to locate the crime scene and check for any other victims. The encampment residents were kept out of the camp for several hours while the scene was processed by crime lab technicians. A Metro Transit bus was made available to keep encampment residents out of the weather.
Shortly after the shooting, police indicated that they had a possible suspect detained a couple blocks away from the encampment where they also found a gun, according to further dispatch audio.
Police later named two suspects who had been arrested in connection to the shooting: Arthur Garrett, 45, and Dale Martin, Jr., 37.
By Friday last week, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office (HCAO) told media that they had declined to file murder charges in the fatal shooting, stating that the shooter fired in self-defense.
Witnesses apparently reported that Mohr had started a fight with the eventual shooter, attacked him, and pulled a gun on him. A spokesperson for HCAO said the shooter was “entitled by law to use deadly force based on his reasonable belief that he was in immediate danger of great bodily harm or death,” KSTP reported.
Court records show that Mohr was wanted on several warrants at the time of his death, including for failure to appear at sentencing after pleading guilty in May to being a felon in possession of a firearm. Mohr had been offered a plea deal in the case that called for a stayed prison sentence, and failed to show up at the sentencing hearing in July.
The shooter was released from custody following the decision by HCAO not to file charges.
The second man arrested, Dale Martin, Jr., remains in custody and was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm after he admitted to police that he had handled or possessed the firearm used in the shooting the day prior. Martin is prohibited from possessing firearms due to a prior weapons conviction. Martin is also being held on warrants in several other cases including felony drug possession, domestic strangulation, and the prior weapons conviction.
The encampment, where close to 200 people reside, has twice been slated for eviction in the last week, but the eviction effort again has been postponed after at least eight City Council members and other activists pressured Mayor Jacob Frey to postpone the eviction. No new eviction date has been set.
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Minnesota Crime Watch & Information publishes news, info and commentary about crime, public safety and livability issues in Minneapolis, the Twin Cities and Greater Minnesota.
Crime Watch MN
Minnesota Crime Watch & Information publishes news, info and commentary about crime, public safety and livability issues in Minneapolis, the Twin Cities and Greater Minnesota.
