Minneapolis law enforcement officers carrying out a traffic stop on Wednesday night killed a man suspected of a crime, officials said.
Police officers exchanged shots with the unidentified man at a Holiday gas station around 6:15 pm
Witnesses said the man opened fire first, Minneapolis Police Department chief Medaria Arradondo said at a news conference, the Star Tribune reported.
A woman in the car came out unscathed and no police were injured in the fatal shooting that took place less than a kilometer from where George Floyd died, after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for more than eight minutes.
The Wednesday night incident was the department’s first police death in the city since Floyd, whose death on May 25 spawned months of protests across the country against police brutality and racial inequality.
Dozens of protesters descended on Wednesday’s shooting site, shouting at the police.
Arradondo urged the protesters to remain peaceful.
“We cannot allow destructive criminal behavior, our city has been through many things,” said the chief at a press conference, according to the Star Tribune.
Images from the police body’s camera will be released quickly, according to Arradondo, who said: “I want the community to be able to see what happened.”
It is not clear how many police officers were involved at the traffic stop.
The state’s Criminal Seizure Department is conducting an investigation.
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