Kenyan man shot and injured in US in ‘racially motivated’ attack
Mr Davis Moturi, 34, who was last week shot in the neck by his neighbour identified as Mr John Herbert Sawchak.
What you need to know:
- Mr Davis Moturi, 34, was last week shot in the neck by his white neighbour identified as John Herbert Sawchak.
- Moturi's wife claims the harassment started shortly after the couple bought their home in September 2023.
Police in the US have arrested a man accused of shooting and critically wounding his neighbour with Kenyan roots while pruning a tree in his yard.
Mr Davis Moturi, 34, was last week shot in the neck by his white neighbour, identified as Mr John Herbert Sawchak, 54, who had been harassing him since he moved into the neighbourhood, last year.
According to Mr Moturi’s wife Caroline, who is organising a GoFundMe to raise money for Moturi’s medication, the harassment started shortly after the couple bought their home in September 2023.
Mr Sawchak threatened Mr Moturi on multiple occasions, including flashing a large knife from a second-floor window of his home and threatening to kill the couple.
“Shortly after moving in, our neighbour began harassing us, threatening us, and stalking us. Despite multiple calls to the police for help, we were consistently informed nothing could be done. At one point, an officer who responded to our distress told us to ‘just move out,” her campaign reads in part.
“Our neighbour attempted to attack Davis with a gardening tool while 10ft in the air doing housework on a ladder. On a separate instance, John (our neighbour) chased him with a shovel. Despite these frequent acts of violence, a warrant was only issued when his white wife reported I was being verbally threatened.”
In the CCTV footage, Mr Moturi is seen pruning trees outside his home when he suddenly falls to the ground.
Mr Moturi survived the shooting and was hospitalised with a fractured spine and several broken ribs.
According to local reports and court filings, before the shooting incident, Mr Moturi had contacted police multiple times about what he said was Mr Sawchak’s escalating harassment, but police had failed to arrest him, saying that he has a mental illness and possesses firearms and that executing a warrant was considered high-risk.
Despite these numerous complaints, Minneapolis police allegedly failed to take appropriate action, resulting in widespread condemnation from the community and observers alike.
In a press conference on Wednesday, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara acknowledged the department's shortcomings, admitting that they did not act with sufficient urgency to prevent the shooting.
“The Minneapolis police somehow did not act urgently enough to prevent that individual from being shot,” he said.
He said that there had been dozens of attempts to make contact with Mr Sawchak and that surveillance was undertaken before the shooting, but with no success, since April.
Mr Sawchak was finally arrested after a standoff at his home, with charges including attempted murder, assault, stalking and bias-motivated harassment, enhanced for racial bias, in connection with the shooting of Mr Moturi.
Prior to his arrest, Mr O'Hara was the subject of intense scrutiny for his department's inaction, and during a press conference appeared to partially blame Mr Moturi for the show, saying "the situation was escalated in part by actions taken by the victim" in cutting down the tree.
“Ultimately, what precipitated the shooting was the cutting of a tree that this individual had planted with his mother, whom he had a very deep attachment to,” Mr O’Hara said.
In court documents, prosecutors say Mr Sawchak was “committed” for mental illness about 10 years ago with “a paranoid personality disorder,” after he was found not competent to proceed in a criminal case.
From his hospital bed, Mr Moturi expressed his frustrations over the police’s lack of response to his previous reports of harassment in an NBC news interview.
“I don’t call the police for fun. I call because I want my family to be safe. It’s very sad that it had to come to this,” he remarked.
“My heart is broken. We aren't safe in our home. I can't bring myself to think of where we would be had the angle of the bullet been slightly different. We will fight not only for justice but also for the protection and safety of our community,” his wife said.
The delay in arresting the suspect had sparked outrage among Minneapolis City Council members, some of whom wrote a letter to O’Hara and Mayor Jacob Frey accusing police of failing to protect Mr Moturi.
The suspect's first court appearance was on Tuesday, October 29, when the judge set his bail at Sh129,000,000 (USD 1 million). He was given the option to post Sh77,400,000 ($600,000) bail, but he would only be freed under supervision.
