Two Minneapolis police snipers shot Andrew “Tekle” Sundberg, 20, after a multi-hour standoff on the city’s south side earlier this week, according to search documents from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
The new documents filed on Friday reveal that the snipers were stationed on the roof of a building across the street from the third-floor apartment unit where Sundberg was in. The BCA, the state’s top law enforcement agency, is looking into the deadly use of police force. It is still unclear what prompted the officers to shoot.
According to CBS News, Investigators say that Sundberg fired multiple gunshots inside the Seward neighborhood apartment building on the night of Wednesday, July 13, prompting a neighbor, Arabella Yarbrough, to call 911, saying a bullet had gone through her wall.
“The first loud bang that I heard, I didn’t know it was a gunshot,” she told WCCO-TV.
A second bullet ripped through her kitchen wall moments later, she then grabbed her two young sons and hid in her bedroom, where she dialed 911. Soon after, she dashed into the building to let the Minneapolis officers in and told them to save her children.
“I thought, ‘We’re not going to make it, we’re not going to make it,'” Yarbrough said.
Sundberg isolated himself inside his unit after police removed Yarbrough’s sons from her apartment, and officers spent hours trying to negotiate with him. Sundberg was shot and killed by two snipers around 4:30 a.m. Thursday. He passed away at Hennepin Healthcare.
BCA investigators recovered a pistol with an extended magazine and several bullet casings from Sundberg’s apartment, according to the search warrants. A bullet fragment from a neighboring apartment unit was also recovered.
Investigators also took the snipers’ rifles and two bullet casings, as well as several non-lethal rounds, though it’s unclear when or if those were fired. Aaron Pearson and Zachary Seraphine, members of the SWAT team, were identified as the officers who fatally shot Sundberg.
Sundberg’s death was the second fatal encounter involving Minneapolis police this year. The first was the shooting of Amir Locke on Feb. 2, when a SWAT team carrying out an early morning no-knock warrant shot the 22-year-old as he stirred on a couch while holding a gun.
Pearson and Seraphine were both members of the team who raided the downtown apartment. Pearson’s body camera captured the shooting, and Locke was treated by Seraphine, a medic before he died.
Prosecutors determined that the shooting was justified, so no officers were charged in Locke’s death. Nonetheless, the Minneapolis Police Department has been under fire for years with accusations of brutality and racism.
The death of George Floyd in May 2020 sparked nationwide outrage and prompted state and federal investigations into the department. An investigation conducted earlier this year by the Minnesota Department of Human Rights discovered that the department had engaged in a pattern of race-based discrimination over the previous decade.
On Thursday night friends and family gathered in a vigil outside the apartment where he died to remember him. Sundberg’s family said in a statement that he struggled with his mental health.
“While we have received very little information thus far, by all accounts, it sounds like our Tekle was suffering from a mental health crisis. We send our deepest sympathies to anyone in his building impacted by his crisis, and we thank the community members who have come forward in loving memory of Tekle,” the family’s statement said.
Sundberg’s family is represented by attorneys Ben Crump and Jeff Storm. The civil rights lawyers also represented the family of George Floyd, who won a $27 million wrongful death settlement with the city of Minneapolis.
Sundberg’s family, according to the attorney, rejects the narrative that the Minneapolis police department’s efforts were done in collaboration with relatives, and what exactly led up to the fatal shooting remains unknown.
“No information has been provided as to why Tekle, who officers had isolated for hours, suddenly needed to be executed,” the attorneys said. “We call on the Minneapolis Police Department to immediately provide the family with the video evidence and other information necessary to answer this question.”