A man is in custody on Tuesday after a shots fired incident started in Minneapolis and ended with one dead and another injured west of the Twin Cities.
Law enforcement booked Ameer Matariyeh, 25, of Minneapolis into the Kandiyohi County Jail on probable cause second-degree murder after he allegedly fired a weapon off a balcony in Minneapolis, fled police, and shot and killed a person near Willmar.
Around 12:30 p.m., Minneapolis police responded to a report of a person shooting from the balcony of an apartment building in Uptown.
At least two people were inside the apartment at the time of the shooting, including the ex-girlfriend of Matariyeh and her current boyfriend. Law enforcement says those two people and Matariyeh got into an altercation, and shots were fired. No one was injured in that incident.
The day care was placed into lockdown, and the child was safely brought to a relative’s home.
Law enforcement eventually contacted Matariyeh by phone, and crisis negotiators spoke with him “for some time.” However, officials later learned he was no longer in his apartment and was traveling outside of the Twin Cities.
The Kandiyohi County Sheriff’s Office says Matariyeh traveled west through several counties before shooting and injuring a man, identified Wednesday as 25-year-old Peter Mayerchak of Lake Lillian, at a rural Kandiyohi County home. He is expected to survive his injuries and is in stable condition, according to authorities.
The suspect was then pursued to the Highway 71/23 bypass southeast of Willmar, where law enforcement says he “attempted a carjacking” before fatally shooting 55-year-old Jerome Skluzacek of New London.
Matariyeh was eventually booked into Kandiyohi County Jail on multiple charges, including murder, according to the sheriff’s office.
Via KSTP