Residents in the Hiawatha neighborhood in Minneapolis say they got a frightening wakeup call Saturday morning when a gunman opened fire in a Minnehaha Avenue apartment building.

“We were sound asleep, because it was about 4:30 in the morning, and just heard a really loud pop,” said Angie Theis, who’s lived in the area for 22 years. “Several shots being fired, heard broken glass, just a lot of noise.”

Theis and her husband Jeff — who were walking their dogs along Minnehaha Avenue, sealed off by crime scene tape — recalled those loud noises went unabated for about an hour.

“I originally thought it was somebody setting off some type of explosives, dynamite, or fireworks, something like that,” he said. “So, then we came down and they said somebody had been shooting in the apartment.”

Not far away, Bureau of Criminal Apprehension investigators could be seen collecting evidence around 4052 Minnehaha Avenue, where those gunfire noises were coming from.

“This was an incredibly unpredictable, terrifying, and rapidly evolving situation,” Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara told reporters.

He praised his officers’ bravery in responding from “all over the city.”

The chief says police initially became involved around 10:30 Friday night when officers responded to multiple 911 calls about a man carrying a shotgun along Minnehaha Avenue.

But he was nowhere to be found, until the gunfire hours later. 

Again, O’Hara says, there were numerous 911 calls from inside the building, and from neighbors nearby.

“The residents inside the apartment building indicated there were shots being fired inside their building and they could hear people banging on their doors and they could also hear glass shattering,” the chief noted.

Arriving officers spotted bullet holes in a front door, shell casings in a hallway, and after finding an open apartment door, discovered a shotgun lying on the floor.

O’Hara says more shots were heard from the north end of the building, and officers began evacuating residents while closing in on the shooter.

“This is the kind of terrifying call that Minneapolis police officers never want to get. But they responded bravely,” declared Mayor Jacob Frey. “To go into a kind of situation where you do not know what to expect, where you’re either encountering a shotgun or, in this case, an AK-47, to say it’s scary would be a massive understatement.”

Police say officers were able to contain the shooter in a north stairwell as they continued evacuation efforts.

An MPD statement says the gunman “periodically fired rounds from an AK-47 style rifle.”

But a muzzle flash gave away his position, police say. 

“The officers located a suspect in the north stairwell and one officer discharged his weapon one time,” O’Hara said. “The suspect was then able to be disarmed.”

The chief says that the suspect, described only as a 40-year-old man who lived in the building, had the rifle, a 45-caliber handgun, and a backpack with extra ammunition and loaded magazines.

O’Hara says the suspect was wearing a military-style flak vest as well.

Wounded in the jaw, he was transported to HCMC, where he is in stable condition.

“I mean, these are the kind of situations that you see nationwide, where an active shooter is doing the worst, and people are dying in large numbers,” Frey said. “That didn’t happen. The fact that more people weren’t hurt is a miracle.” 

Police say they hadn’t had any previous encounters with the suspect.

Investigators are now looking for a motive in this case.

For now, Jeff Theis says he’s glad the gunman was captured, with no loss of life.

“We didn’t know if (the suspect) was going room to room shooting people, we had no idea what was going on,” he explained. “Especially with that type of hardware, it really could have been way worse.”

Saturday’s gunfire follows a violent week in the city, with an uptick in homicides. 

“We were hoping that our city would get a break from some of this violence,” O’Hara said. “It’s been an exhausting week for everyone, from the community and for the department. But again, glad everyone’s going to survive here.”