National Guardsman who shot live ammo at driver during 2020 Minneapolis unrest is cleared of wrongdoing

The white sedan was heading down a service road adjacent to the Courtyard by Marriot on the edge of downtown Minneapolis when the National Guardsman started shooting.

It was about 9:40 p.m. on May 31, 2020, more than an hour after curfew went into effect and six days into the protests and riots that followed George Floyd's killing. A semitrailer truck had barreled onto the nearby Interstate 35W Bridge a few hours earlier, miraculously missing the hundreds of protesters clustered there. The National Guard and other law enforcement stationed in the parking lot had escalated to higher-alert status after reports of gunshots in the area.

Footage of the encounter shows law enforcement first firing less-lethal bullets at the vehicle in apparent attempts to turn the driver around. Then come the shriller cracks of live M4 rifle rounds.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa – shots fired, shots fired!" shouts an Anoka County deputy on the scene, according to body-camera video of the encounter.

"They told me to shoot! They said shoot!" a National Guardsman frantically replied.

"Who told you to shoot?" he is asked.

"You did, at that car!" the Guardsman responded before someone replies: "It's less lethal, dude."

More than three years after the chaotic event, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension has released a trove of body-camera videos and investigative reports documenting the shooting, first reported by KSTP after what the TV station called "a year long fight for data in the case."

The documents describe a hectic encounter, in which a confused Guardsman — whose identity is redacted — fired four live rounds from a military-style assault rifle at the car, driven by Joshua Cochran, a 34-year-old Minneapolis man who told investigators he was on his way to help a friend in distress. With a bridge closed, his GPS directed him down the service road — leading into a poorly lit parking lot full of armed law enforcement agents.

The 574-page file ends with a letter from Hennepin County prosecutors declining to charge the Guardsman, concluding he acted lawfully in a hectic situation that made him fear for his life. "Nothing in the evidence, as presented, shows that his actions were not legally acceptable under the laws of officer use of force, self-defense and defense of others," a prosecutor wrote. "Accordingly, no charges will issue[d]."

'The car's been shot at'

Earlier that day, Cochran had gone to stay with a friend, Fred Stachnik, who lived in south Minneapolis near where rioting had erupted throughout the week. Cochran planned to stay the night, he later told investigators, but another friend called to say she was having a panic attack, so he borrowed Stachnik's car to go to her house in northeast Minneapolis.

Shortly after leaving, Cochran called Stachnik in a panicked frenzy. "I could barely understand what he was saying, but I remember him saying, 'The car's been shot at,'" Stachnik told the Star Tribune in an interview Friday.

Cochran drove back to Stachnik's place. They found a nearby group of community paramedics who helped remove what looked like a bullet fragment from Cochran's nose.

The windshield of Stachnik's car was smashed and the passenger-side window shattered. A tear gas canister lay on the floor among the shards of glass, and two bullets had penetrated the door.

Guardsman said he feared for life

Reports from the U.S. Department of the Army included in the BCA file say Cochran first approached slowly, paused briefly and then continued to move toward the law enforcement agents, prompting them to fire "an unknown number" of less-lethal projectiles at it.

After the car appeared to leave, one of the law enforcement agents asked for protocol if another vehicle approached. "If the car doesn't stop, go to a prone position and aim," one of the others, also unnamed, responded. "If the car gets danger close, chamber a round. If you fear for your life and have no other option, engage (the target)."

When the car approached again, "this time at a high rate of speed," one of the officers shouted "car left," the report says. Deputies shouted "fire" and "shoot," and the Guardsman fired at the car's engine and tires, according to the reports.

Not far away, an Anoka County sheriff's sergeant's body-camera footage captured the volley as he spoke with a Minnesota State Patrol trooper.

"Oh great, the National Guard fired shots," the sergeant is heard saying.

In an interview with investigators, the Guardsman said he believed the order to "shoot" meant he was supposed to fire on the car, and he thought others were also using live ammo. "When they yell shoot, I was — thought that was for all of us, so I thought there's live rounds too," he said. "If someone hit 'em, I didn't wanna be that person, but I also would rather be that person than me and everyone else dead, like, I'm telling you right now, if I didn't shoot at him he wouldn't have stopped, and I swear by that."

No charges

The investigators forwarded the case to then-Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman's office, and a review found the evidence did not support charging the Guardsman because "the approaching vehicle could be seen as a viable threat." Freeman's office also determined that less-lethal force had been unsuccessfully tried.

"Another guardsman who was nearby indicated that he thought his life, or the lives of other officers, were in danger," prosecutor Dan Allard wrote in a January 2021 report. "Nothing in the evidence disproves that it was a reasonable conclusion that the vehicle could jump the curb and strike officers before they could move if force wasn't used to deter the driver of the vehicle."

A report from the Department of the Army also found that the Guardsman responded reasonably. "Given the speed and proximity of the vehicle, [the Guardsman] believed that if the vehicle was not stopped or re-directed, the vehicle would have caused death or great bodily harm to him and the accompanying personnel," the report states.

Asked for comment, Minnesota National Guard Maj. Jackie Stenger said the person who fired the shots — who served for 3 ½ years in a unit based out of Fergus Falls before firing the shots, according to the BCA file — is no longer a member of the Guard.

"During 2020's civil unrest, the Guard was activated to support civil authorities in the metro area," Stenger said in a statement. "During the activation, Guard members took direction from civilian law enforcement agencies. Activated service members received many briefings, including the Standing Rules for the Use of Force (SRUF), before supporting law enforcement agencies throughout the metro. The investigation into this incident concluded that the service member's use of force was reasonable during this event."

In June 2021, Cochran and Stachnik filed a federal lawsuit alleging assault, battery and negligence by the National Guard. The lawsuit says that Cochran was driving "in the only direction possible" with no room to turn around on the service road when he came upon the officers. "Joshua simply followed the road ahead of him and did not lunge his vehicle at National Guard members to warrant being shot at," the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit was settled out of court for $128,000, said Nico Ratkowski, attorney for the two men.