A potentially dangerous scenario was averted this week, as Minneapolis police officers, responding to reports of a person brandishing a firearm near Hennepin Healthcare Hospital, secured both a suspect and a handgun – no shots fired, no injuries reported. The prompt action followed a dead-end initial search, but the officers employed city surveillance cameras and pivoted quickly when the suspect’s description came into focus, according to a social media post by the Minneapolis Police Department.
Once identified, the suspect was located near 3rd Street and Nicollet Mall, where officers from the downtown Community Response Team (CRT) converged, detaining the individual and recovering suspected narcotics in addition to the handgun – the suspect, it was later determined, lacked a proper permit for the weapon. With the community’s pulse quickening amidst rising concerns about urban safety, this kind of resolution offers a brief exhale – Minneapolis streets spared a potentially graver headline – and a hat tip to vigilant policing…