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 police’s failure to arrest the suspect has angered city council members.
The Hennepin County District Attorney’s Office has filed charges against John Herbert Sawchak in connection with Wednesday’s shooting of Davis Moturi.
The office said it received the case Thursday and immediately charged Sawchak with attempted murder, first-degree assault and aggravated harassment and stalking, enhanced for racial bias, NBC affiliate KARE in Minneapolis reported.
At the time of the shooting, Sawchak had three active warrants for his arrest, including one for making threats of violence against Moturi, according to court documents.
As of Saturday afternoon, Sawchak had not been arrested by Minneapolis police. A spokesman said they “have every intention of arresting him.”
On Wednesday, Moturi was trimming a tree on his property when he was shot. Court documents show Sawchak shot his neighbor in the neck with a gun from an open upstairs window.
Moturi suffered a broken spine, two broken ribs and a concussion, his wife, Caroline, said in a telephone 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 had been called to the hospital for reports of a shooting victim. Moturi told them his neighbor had threatened to shoot him “if he touched a specific tree.” Moturi was shooting while he was cutting down the tree.
The chief said Sawchak was not arrested because he is “mentally ill” and possesses firearms. In the past, Sawchak has had “violent encounters” and has refused to cooperate on dozens of occasions when officers have come to his home, O’Hara said.
Court documents say Sawchak suffers from a mental illness and “paranoid personality disorder.”
“We have been working to arrest the suspect in this case since April of this year, when the harassment charges were first dismissed by the district attorney’s office and then filed with the city attorney’s office,” the police chief told reporters. “No Minneapolis police officer has had personal contact with that suspect since the victim in this case called us.”
O’Hara said executing a warrant would be considered high risk.
“Based on our assessment, the likelihood of an armed, violent confrontation where we may have to use deadly force against the suspect in this case is high,” he said. “We wanted to arrest the suspect where he would least likely have access to firearms, which is outside the home.”
The chief said Sawchak is a “recluse” who does not leave his home often. A police spokesman did not have a timeline for a possible arrest.
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 the police department of “failing to protect a Minneapolis resident from a clear, persistent and widely reported threat from 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 streets.
“I’m not a police officer, I don’t know how that’s done, but I know it needs to be done,” Jenkins said.
O’Hara said anyone suggesting that police won’t arrest Sawchak is “simply wrong.” Frey’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“To be honest, the officers are scared. They’re scared of being sued 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 launched after the 2020 killing of George Floyd. The Justice Department found that the department and the city had a pattern of excessive force and racial discrimination that violated both the U.S. Constitution and federal law.
“If we went in with a SWAT team and ended up with a deadly force situation, the headlines would be ‘MPD shoots a mentally ill person,’” the chief said.
Moturi, 34, said the police department’s failure to help him is the reason he is now in the hospital.
“I specifically said in emails that something really, really bad has to happen before something happens,” he said in a phone interview from the hospital. “And something really bad has happened and he is still out.”
Moturi and his wife said their problems with Sawchak began after they moved into their home in September 2023. At first, they said it was because Moturi wanted to cut down a tree on his property.
“I went to him about the tree, like any good neighbor should … and he just wasn’t having it. He got really aggressive and called me names,” Moturi said. “I thought he was just having a bad day, so I left and when I came back, he kept making threats and saying all kinds of racist things, calling me ghetto.”
The problems with Sawchak quickly escalated, according to Moturi, who said Sawchak started doing things like spraying water on the side of his house and using a blow horn to keep them awake.
It got so bad that Moturi installed outdoor cameras to record his neighbor’s behavior. According to Moturi, Sawchak tried to attack him while he was putting up the cameras.
Moturi said he had to pepper spray Sawchak to get him to leave.
In another incident in April, Moturi said Sawchak attacked him with a shovel while he was cleaning his yard.
Moturi said he and his wife called and emailed police dozens of times, but Sawchak was never arrested.
Court documents show 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 said.
In June of that year, he allegedly used a knife to slash the tires of an off-duty police officer’s vehicle. Other incidents cited in the document allege he tried to hit a neighbor with a motorized bicycle, threatened to ambush and shoot his sister, hit a neighbor with a wooden stick, injuring him, threatened to hospitalize a neighbor and threw a shovel at a neighbor.
He has been arrested multiple times over the years on suspicion of second-degree assault and assault/harassment, according to court documents.
This month, Sawchak was accused of brandishing a knife and threatening to kill his neighbor, pointing a gun at his neighbor while standing outside his neighbor’s window and shooting the neighbor in the neck, according to the documents.
Sawchak is also accused in court filings of violating multiple restraining orders for harassment. Since 2007, he has been subject to 13 restraining orders for harassment, the most recent of which was filed by Moturi, who said Sawchak “threatened to have him hospitalized while holding a weapon.”
Another restraining order filed by a different person expired earlier this month, according to court documents.