A warrant has been issued for a Minneapolis man’s arrest after a year-long pattern of harassment and intimidation against his neighbors culminated in a shooting earlier this week, court documents say.

John Herbert Sawchak, 54, faces charges of second-degree attempted murder, first-degree assault, stalking and harassment committed because of bias.

The victim, Davis Moturi, installed a security camera at his home to capture evidence of the escalating threats. Video of the incident on Wednesday evening shows him pruning a tree near the property line with Sawchak’s apartment building before a “pop” is heard. The victim then collapses backward to the ground.

“I was like, ‘I need to get help.’ Part of my brain shut off,” Davis Moturi told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS from his hospital bed on Friday.

He called his wife, Caroline Moturi, who raced home.

“I found him — he was in the entry, curled up in a fetal position in agony,” Caroline Moturi said.

She took her husband to the hospital, but he didn’t realize he had been shot.

According to a criminal complaint, a medical evaluation found Davis Moturi had been shot with a small-caliber bullet that had lodged near his spine. The angle of the puncture wound indicated he had been shot from above and the bullet entered through his neck before fracturing his spine and at least two ribs.

Caroline Moturi told police Sawchak “almost certainly” shot her husband, according to the complaint.

A year of threats

The couple purchased their home on the 3500 block of Grand Avenue South in September 2023. Since then, they told police they’ve faced numerous threats from Sawchak, who lives in a second-floor apartment next door.

“It’s been hell,” Davis Moturi said of the ongoing ordeal.

The week before the shooting, Sawchak had allegedly told Moturi, “Touch my tree again and I’ll kill you.” He had threatened Davis Moturi over the tree as early as October 2023.

Other incidents included threatening to “put the victim in the hospital” while he was working on a ladder, throwing objects at him from his second-floor window and menacingly holding a knife in his window while threatening the couple. As recently as Oct. 14, Sawchak had pointed a gun at the victim from his window. Many of the threats were laced with racial slurs and insults, according to the complaint.

In all, the Moturis had reported 19 incidents of vandalism, property damage, harassment and threats in the year they had lived next door.

“I had to call the cops so many times,” Davis Moturi said.

Months without an arrest

Online jail records show Sawchak has yet to be placed in custody. Court records show he has at least three other outstanding warrants connected to “threats or acts of violence” against the victim and his neighbors.

A spokesperson for Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said her office had charged Sawchak with felony threats of violence back in July “as a result of his behavior towards Mr. Moturi” and issued a warrant for his arrest. When filing charges in connection with Wednesday’s shooting, prosecutors became aware of several incidents that have occurred since that warrant was issued.

“Mr. Moturi and his wife have suffered from Mr. Sawchak’s aggressive behavior for over a year after they purchased their home in September 2023,” the Attorney’s Office said. “We will continue to do everything in our power to seek to hold Mr. Sawchak accountable and protect Mr. Moturi, his wife, and the broader community from his violent behavior.”

Ward 8 City Council Member Andrea Jenkins — who represents the Moturi family — sent a letter with support from fellow council members expressing their outrage that Sawchak was never arrested on those outstanding warrants and was left to terrorize a family that had reported repeated threats.

“We are writing today in utter horror at MPD’s failure to protect a Minneapolis resident from a clear, persistent, and amply reported threat posed by his neighbor,” the letter addressed to Mayor Jacob Frey and Police Chief Brian O’Hara states.

The letter alleges MPD did not submit reports to Moriarty’s office when the Moturis reported Sawchak threatening them with a knife and then a gun in the weeks leading up to the shooting. Furthermore, the letter states “MPD told the HCAO they do not intend to execute the warrant ‘for reasons of officer safety.'”

“MPD’s failure to act has left Mr. Moturi asking, ‘Am I not human like you?’ We echo Mr. Moturi’s heartbreaking question about why MPD did not protect this Black resident from a clear and serious threat, and why they continue to do so by failing to cooperate with the County Attorney’s Office and failing to arrest the suspect,” the letter states. “We also have many questions about how and why MPD leadership and the Mayor allowed this situation to escalate.”

Chief O’Hara lashes out

In a fiery news conference Friday, Chief O’Hara defended his police department’s handling of the case and pointed blame at the media, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office, the Minneapolis City Council and even the victim for allowing the dispute to boil over to violence.

O’Hara said officers had tried numerous times to arrest Sawchak, but he never came out of his house or responded to police who were trying to make contact.

He said given that the suspect is mentally ill and is known to have a gun, there was a “high” likelihood that executing a high-risk search warrant would end in a violent confrontation.

“We wanted to arrest the suspect where he would be least likely to have access to firearms. That is outside the residence,” O’Hara said, adding that up until Wednesday, MPD only had a warrant for threats Sawchak had made. “Unfortunately, in this case, the suspect is a recluse and does not often come out of the house.”

O’Hara proceeded to blame Davis Moturi for not notifying an MPD lieutenant when Sawchak left the home. He said Davis Moturi should have left the tree on his property alone after Sawchak had threatened him over it.

“The situation escalated in part by actions that were precipitated by the victim,” O’Hara said.

The chief then took aim at “the current rhetoric around policing” and said it “hampers our ability to effect lawful arrests.”

“Anyone who suggests that cops don’t want to arrest this person is simply wrong. To be frank, the officers, however, are scared. They’re scared of being prosecuted if they make a mistake trying to do their job and protect the public,” O’Hara said. “… It’s damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”

The chief also expressed his frustrations at the letter from City Council members, claiming no one had tried calling him before sending it out. Jenkins, who attended the news conference, told reporters she had contacted O’Hara, Frey, Moriarty and an MPD inspector “many, many times” before the shooting on Wednesday.

O’Hara only took two questions from the news media before leaving the briefing room, but Council Member Jenkins tailed him into a hallway, where they had a heated exchange behind a closed door before ending with an embrace.

Jenkins did not mince her words when asked about O’Hara’s remarks about officers being fearful to confront Sawchak in his home.

“I can tell you this: We pay our officers a lot of money to do the job that they signed up to do, and so they should be willing to do their job,” Jenkins said. “I think that’s what the police chief said, that everyone should do their job.”

Moturi said, “he knows there is no defense for what happened” in response to Chief O’Hara’s explanation during the press conference. He called O’Hara’s remarks offensive and disagreed with his account of events. According to Maturi, “When I asked for help, crickets.”

He also told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS the suggestion that his actions contributed to the shooting “so disrespectful and so rude.”

“They’ve been treating me like I’m the criminal because they’ve been messing up and they have no way of explaining it,” said Moturi. “I feel like I’m being treated this way because of the color of my skin.”

A GoFundMe has been started to help Moturi, which can be found HERE.