Charles Means, a 21-year-old Black/African American male, was gunned down on the evening of Aug. 3, 2010, as Minneapolis neighborhoods gathered for National Night Out. He was found in an alley off the 2600 block of Penn Avenue North, where multiple shots were fired and the late-summer block parties gave way to sirens and police tape. The night—meant for cookouts and conversations—closed instead with officers working beneath streetlights and porch bulbs, marking casings and searching for a path through the chaos that had erupted just before 7 p.m.
Detectives canvassed a crowd that police believed numbered in the dozens, appealing for anyone who saw the gunfire or the moments that led to it to come forward. In the weeks that followed, authorities did not announce an arrest, and public accounts offered no confirmed suspect description—only the knowledge that a young man’s life had ended amid a citywide effort to celebrate safety and community. The case remained one where investigators leaned on witness memories from that busy corner of north Minneapolis, hoping someone would help name the shooter.
