Violence Free Minnesota calls for action after Minneapolis mass shooting

Shoreline Plaza, 15 E. Grant St. in Minneapolis, where a mass shooting killed two people and the suspected gunman and injured several others on Sept. 2, 2026.

Minnesota must do more to recognize and intervene in domestic violence before it escalates into mass violence, Violence Free Minnesota said, calling the Sept. 2 Minneapolis apartment shooting a stark example of the deadly consequences of intimate-partner abuse. The statewide coalition to end relationship abuse said the shooting should prompt a broader reckoning with the attitudes and behaviors that allow violence against women to escalate.

“This was not a loss of control; it was the use of fatal violence to maintain it,” the organization said in a statement.

According to Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension superintendent Drew Evans, Carlton Neal Johnson targeted his former partner during a custody exchange, shooting and injuring her in front of their 4-year-old daughter before fatally shooting bystanders Dale Henry Spry, 63, and Muse Abdi Afrah, 61.

Violence Free Minnesota said Johnson had “an extensive history of domestic and sexual violence against multiple women” and that witnesses and residents reported hearing him threaten to kill his former girlfriend before and during the shooting.

The organization called for sustained intervention, particularly among men and boys, to challenge what it describes as male entitlement and misogyny.

“Male entitlement is more than the socially conditioned and supported belief that men have a right to enact violence,” the statement said. “It is the belief that men have a right to control, enforced by violence or threats of violence as necessary.”

Minneapolis police investigated a June 25 report that Johnson displayed a firearm, but determined the gun never left his waistband. Although he had a legal permit to carry, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office later determined there was insufficient evidence to charge him or seek an Extreme Risk Protection Order, County Attorney Mary Moriarty said.

Violence Free Minnesota said the June incident and the shooting should be viewed within a larger pattern of violence against women rather than explained primarily by stress, mental health or other individual circumstances.

“The horrific violence that took the lives of Dale and Muse...was an act of power and control,” the group said.

The organization also urged the public and news media to center the people affected by the shooting rather than the gunman or law enforcement response. It called for a shift “from a focus on the heroics of law enforcement to one that centers victims and survivors of gender-based violence.”

“It is only through our collective, continued action that we will end domestic violence in all its forms in Minnesota and nationwide,” Violence Free Minnesota said.