A white Minneapolis man was charged with attempted murder Thursday after allegedly shooting his Black neighbor in the neck for touching a tree following an ongoing dispute, but the failure of police to arrest the suspect has angered city council members.
The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office filed charges against John Herbert Sawchak in connection with the Wednesday shooting of Davis Moturi.
The office said it received the case on Thursday and immediately charged Sawchak with attempted murder, first-degree assault and felony harassment and stalking, enhanced for racial bias, NBC affiliate KARE of Minneapolis reported.
At the time of the shooting, Sawchak had three active arrest warrants against him, including one for threats of violence against Moturi, court documents state.
As of Saturday afternoon, Sawchak had not been arrested by Minneapolis police. A spokesperson said they have “every intention to arrest” him.
On Wednesday, Moturi was pruning a tree on his property when he was shot. Court documents state that Sawchak shot his neighbor in the neck with a firearm from an open upstairs window.
Moturi fractured his spine, has two broken ribs and a concussion, his wife, Caroline, said in a phone interview Saturday.
Sawchak, 54, could not be reached at a phone number listed for him.
Police Chief Brian O’Hara said at a news conference Friday that officers responded to the hospital over reports of a gunshot victim. Moturi told them that his neighbor had threatened to shoot him “if he touched a specific tree.” While Moturi was cutting the tree, he was shot.
The chief said Sawchak has not been arrested because he is “mentally ill” and possesses firearms. In the past, Sawchak has had “violent confrontations” and refused to cooperate in the dozens of times officers have responded to his home, O’Hara said.
Court documents state that Sawchak suffers from mental illness and “paranoid personality disorder.”
“We’ve been working to arrest the suspect in this case since at least April of this year, when harassment charges were first declined by the county attorney’s office and then filed with the city attorney’s office,” the police chief told reporters. “No Minneapolis police officers have had in-person contact with that suspect since the victim in this case has been calling us.”
O’Hara said that the execution of a warrant would be deemed high-risk.
“Based on our assessment, the likelihood of an armed, violent confrontation where we may have to use deadly force with the suspect in this case is high,” he said. “We wanted to arrest the suspect where he would be least likely to have access to firearms. That is outside the residence.”
The chief said Sawchak is a “recluse” who does not often leave his home. A police spokesperson did not have a timeline on when a possible arrest could be made.
The delay in taking Sawchak into custody has angered some Minneapolis City Council members. Andrea Jenkins, Elliott Payne, Aisha Chughtai, Jason Chavez and Robin Wonsley sent a letter to O’Hara and Mayor Jacob Frey, accusing police of failing to protect “a Minneapolis resident from a clear, persistent, and amply reported threat posed by his neighbor,” according to The Minnesota Star Tribune.
Jenkins told reporters after the police chief’s news conference that violent criminals need to be taken off the street.
“I’m not a police officer, I don’t know how that gets done, but I know that needs to get done,” Jenkins said.
O’Hara said anyone who suggests that police do not want to arrest Sawchak is “simply wrong.” Frey’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“To be frank, the officers, however, are scared. They’re scared of being prosecuted if they get into a situation where they make a mistake trying to do their job and protect the public,” the police chief said at the news conference.
Last year, the Minneapolis Police Department was at the center of a federal investigation that was launched in the wake of the 2020 murder of George Floyd. The Department of Justice found the department and city had a pattern of excessive force and racial discrimination that violated both the U.S. Constitution and federal law.
“If we did go in with a SWAT team and wound up with a deadly force situation, the headlines would read ‘MPD shoots a mentally ill person,’” the chief said.
Moturi, 34, said the police’s failure to help him is why he is now in the hospital.
“In emails, I said specifically that it’s going to take something really, really bad to happen before anything’s done,” he said in a phone interview from the hospital. “And something really really bad did happen and he’s still free.”
Moturi and his wife said their issues with Sawchak started after they moved into their home in September 2023. Initially, they said it stemmed from Moturi wanting to cut down a tree on his property.
“I went to go approach him about the tree as any good neighbor should … and he just wasn’t having it. He started to get very aggressive, calling me names,” Moturi said. “I was thinking he just had a bad day so I left and I came back and he continued to make threats and say all sorts of racially charged things, called me ghetto.”
The problems with Sawchak soon escalated, according to Moturi, who said Sawchak started doing things like spraying water onto the side of his house, and using a blowhorn to keep them awake.
It got so bad that Moturi installed outside cameras to catch his neighbor’s behavior. According to Moturi while he was putting up the cameras, he says Sawchak tried to attack him.
Moturi said he had to pepper spray Sawchak to get him to back away.
During another incident in April, Moturi said Sawchak attacked him with a shovel as he cleaned his yard.
Moturi said he and his wife called and emailed the police dozens of times, but Sawchak was never arrested.
Court documents revealed that Sawchak has a long history of alleged threats and violent acts. In January 2016, he allegedly verbally harassed a neighbor while holding a knife and threatened to kill a neighbor, the documents say.
In June of that year, he allegedly used a knife to slash the tires of an off-duty police officer’s vehicle. Other instances mentioned in the document alleged that he tried to hit a neighbor with a motorized bicycle, threatened to ambush and shoot his sister, struck a neighbor with a wooden stick causing injuries, threatened to put a neighbor in the hospital, and threw a shovel at a neighbor.
He was arrested several times over the years on suspicion of second-degree assault and misdemeanor assault/harassment, the court documents state.
This month, Sawchak was accused of brandishing a knife and threatening to kill his neighbor, pointing a firearm at his neighbor while standing outside the neighbor’s window and shooting the neighbor in the neck, according to the documents.
The court filing also accuses Sawchak of violating multiple harassment restraining orders. Since 2007, he has had 13 harassment restraining orders filed against him, the most recent one filed by Moturi, who said Sawchak “threatened to put him in a hospital while holding a weapon.”
Another restraining order filed by a different person expired earlier this month, according to the court documents.
