The well-dressed man waved down the Red and White Taxi cab at a major intersection in south Minneapolis early Thursday and gave the driver an apparently bogus address in the north metro.
It was about 5 a.m. He smelled of alcohol but didn't appear drunk, said Pat White, general manager of Red and White Taxi. The driver thought the man looked like a professional going home after a late night at the office, but in minutes the cabdriver had a gun pressed against his head. The suspect ordered the cabdriver out of the car and then led authorities on a 40-minute chase across the metro before being shot and killed by police.
Authorities provided few details about the case, declining to discuss a possible motive or the last moments of the pursuit in which the suspect faced off with six law enforcement officials on northbound Interstate 35E just south of Forest Lake.
It's unclear how many of the officers fired their guns and whether the suspect fired his gun or threatened the officers.
Dave Bjerga, superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said authorities would not reveal much more until the officers -- three State Patrol troopers, two Brooklyn Park police officers and one Minneapolis police officer -- were interviewed.
"There's a lot of information that needs to be collected here, and in fairness of everyone involved in this incident, we need to make sure that the information is accurate and complete," he said.
Authorities are reviewing camera footage taken from squad cars.
The suspect's identity has not been released, pending an autopsy and notification of relatives. An ambulance carrying his body left the scene of the shooting about 10 a.m. as investigators searched the area for evidence, closing the northbound lanes of I-35E until early afternoon.
