On the evening of March 23, 2020, Gregory J. Turner, a 52-year-old Black / African American male, was tragically killed during a home invasion in his duplex located in the 1400 block of 17th Avenue North in the Near North neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Earlier in the day, Turner had been working with his crew, painting the upstairs unit of the property. To help ventilate the paint fumes, the front door had been left open.
The Hennepin County Medical Examiner later determined that Turner died from a shotgun wound to the chest, ruling his death a homicide.
The situation escalated when a downstairs neighbor, visibly shaken and covered in blood, came up the stairs with a suspect behind her. The assailant, described as wearing a black ski mask and armed with a sawed-off shotgun, confronted Turner and others present. The gunman barged into the upstairs unit, demanding money and drugs. As Gregory Turner attempted to de-escalate the tense and rapidly deteriorating situation, the suspect shot him.
After shooting Turner, the suspect leaned over his body, took money from his pockets, and then fled the scene before police could arrive. Officers were called to the residence on reports of shots fired and found Turner deceased inside. Investigators believe a robbery preceded the fatal shooting and noted that another individual at the home had been assaulted but did not require hospitalization. The Minneapolis Police Department's crime lab collected evidence from the scene, including video footage from nearby surveillance cameras. However, despite these efforts, the suspect has not been publicly identified, and no arrests have been made in the ongoing investigation.
