Mom: 'I'm on my way to the morgue' to ID son shot near Brooklyn Center motel

The man who was shot and left banging for help on a Brooklyn Center motel door before dying was identified Friday as a 25-year-old from Minneapolis.

Michael McGowan was shot sometime before 3:30 a.m. Thursday close to the Super 8 motel near Interstate 694 and Shingle Creek Parkway, said his mother, Rosalind Baker. As of early Friday afternoon, there have been no arrests in the killing, but police say they do not believe the shooting was random.

Baker, of Des Moines, said that all she knows is that "somebody shot him."

The mother said she has just arrived in the Twin Cities and am "on my way to identify his body. ... I'm on my way to the morgue."

Afterward, Baker said that a detective at the medical examiner's office only told her that her son had been shot and "that was it. This is crazy. They wouldn't even let me see him."

Baker said her son had been in Minneapolis for about four years but was not working or going to school and was living with a girlfriend.

A van outside the motel drew the attention of investigators and was towed from the scene. It is registered to a 27-year-old man and under an address in the 2700 block of Bryant Avenue N. Baker identified the van's owner as McGowan's cousin.

McGowan, whose identity has yet to be officially released, got the attention of motel staff members inside as he banged on a door on the southwest side of the motel "asking to come in and he was bloodied," police Cmdr. Tim Gannon said.

Efforts by officers to revive McGowan were in vain.

Gannon said it appears that the man's wounds were suffered within a block or so from the motel and that he had come from the direction of a nearby Denny's restaurant to the south of the Super 8.

Police are asking that anyone with information about the incident to call them at 763-503-3115.

Gannon said Friday that police have "developed a lot of information from the witness. We are following up on all leads."